Millions of videos were muted Thursday on TikTok following a contract dispute with Universal Music Group (UMG), which licenses its music to the popular video hosting platform. The contract expired on January 31.
According to an open letter published on its website January 30, UMG explained that it removed its music from TikTok because of a lack of appropriate compensation for artists' and songwriters’ work, failure to protect human artists from the impact of artificial intelligence and a lack of effort to protect users online.
The decision means that songs by popular artists like Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift, Adele and Drake will be muted on the platform over the coming days.
UMG wrote that TikTok is proposing to pay its artists and songwriters "at a rate that is a fraction of the rate" that similar platforms pay, and that TikTok accounts for 1% of their total revenue.
Upon addressing these issues with TikTok, UMG said that TikTok responded "first with indifference, and then intimidation," by removing up-and-coming artists from the platform while keeping music from more popular artists.
TikTok responded to UMG’s open letter, saying UMG "put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters," and that TikTok had reached “artist-first agreements with every other label and publisher.”
Since the songs have been removed from TikTok, the change has been noticeable on the app. Many profiles are now filled with soundless videos, and artists who once used the platform to promote their music must find alternative means.
Noah Kahan, an artist who frequently promotes his music on TikTok, urged his fans to pre-save his upcoming song.
"I'll probably be OK, right? I'll land on my feet, right?" he asked his fans in a recent TikTok video.
Other content creators on TikTok noted the change, with many expressing dismay at seeing so many muted videos and having a much narrower set of music options to choose from.
Savannah DeLullo, a content creator on TikTok with the handle dailyxsav, said Thursday that although creators won't be able to use songs by artists like Swift moving forward, some of her previous videos using Swift's music haven't been muted.
"Hopefully, that stays the same, and all the years of videos that used Taylor Swift's music and other UMG artists' music don't get muted," she said. "I kind of don't have faith in it."
According to The New York Times, this contract dispute is not unheard of with major platforms, and disputes in the past have typically been resolved after some time.
Experts say the removal of UMG's music isn't likely to last forever. Music executive Ted Cockle said this decision is a "wonderful theatrical standoff between two very major corporations" that want to "assert their authority on the landscape."
Some material for this report came from The Associated Press.
