TikTok has faced a recent change that has a lot of people upset. The company Universal Music Group or UMG has backed away from their ties with TikTok. It has upset a lot of people because in many videos the sounds used have been muted. This has left videos with famous audios gone such as Taylor Swift, Drake, SZA, Kendrick Lamar and many more.
Universal Music Group has licensing agreements with all of these big artists. This means that any video posted with audios from them and others are silenced. TikTok chose to remove all of these audios from the app in a way to clap back at the company.
UMG released a statement the day before its contract with TikTok expired stating essentially “Ultimately TikTok is trying to build a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music”. The company of TikTok followed back saying “Despite Universal’s false narrative and rhetoric, the fact is they have chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform with well over a billion users that serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle for their talent.” Which led to UMG’s response back to them saying,“TikTok’s influence over the music industry has expanded in recent years as artists (and their labels) attempt to break through the platform’s cryptic algorithm”.
These are two big companies so it is possible there will be some repercussions. It’s hard to tell what will come next for the company. Right now a lot of TikTokers are using different sounds whilst complaining about the removal of all these sounds. This also is affecting smaller musicians as well. TikTok is a great platform to get music out and advertise new songs and artists.
“TikTok proposed paying our artists and songwriters at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay,” UMG said in the statement.
The company of TikTok followed back saying “UMG is putting greed over before the interest of their musicians and songwriters.”
Not only are the companies upset over this dispute, the people who use the app everyday for entertainment and creation are upset as well. Some Grand Ledge students shared their opinions.
“I think that it was really annoying, because so many of my favorite videos got ruined and now are left muted or have a random song playing in the background,” Junior Sophie Cook said.
“I think it’s funny to see the influencers have their little kids make the sounds instead. It’s cool to see their creative side and to see all the ways they are making it normal again,” Senior Ava Parker said.
It’s hard to know what will be the next step for these two companies but also the people that make them what they are.
