Why did Taylor Swift remove her music from Tiktok?

Universal Music Group (UMG) has announced its intention to stop licensing TikTok's music to certain artists to protect its rights and combat the dark side of artificial intelligence (AI).

UMG plans to withdraw all of its songs from TikTok when the contracts expire. The contract, signed between UMG and TikTok in 2021, expires on January 31.

Songs by popular artists such as Taylor Swift, BTS, Drake, Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, Lady Gaga, Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish, Eminem, Nicki Minaj, Justin Bieber, Karol G and Post Malone, are all under UMG's management and may be pulled from the TikTok platform, the source said.

The decision was made a few days before the 2024 Grammy Awards (taking place on the evening of February 4, Los Angeles time, USA).

Why did Taylor Swift remove her music from Tiktok?

Universal Music Group plans to withdraw all of its songs from TikTok when its contracts expire. The contract, signed between UMG and TikTok in 2021, expires on January 31. Photo: Tiktok.

"We recognize the challenges TikTok poses and assess what this will mean for artists and fans who, unfortunately, will be among those who will suffer short-term consequences from TikTok," UMG shared.

TikTok responded to UMG in a statement on the evening of January 30: "It is sad and disappointing that UMG has put its own greed before the interests of its artists and musicians. Despite UMG's false accusations, the fact is that they have chosen to walk away from the strong support of a social platform with over a billion users that serves as a free vehicle for their talent."

UMG said it was unable to reach an agreement with TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, over licensing fees. It alleges that TikTok is monetizing artists' work without paying them fair fees. Although TikTok is expected to earn $20 billion in advertising revenue this year, it is only proposing a "small" fee compared to similar platforms that work with UMG. However, the profits UMG receives from TikTok account for just 1% of total revenue.

According to Billboard, UMG in a letter to artists and songwriters said TikTok tried to force them to accept unfair deals. The platform also threatened to remove songs from new artists, keeping only songs from big stars. UMG also accused TikTok of creating a music market that did not need to pay artists properly.

In addition to the cost issue, UMG is also concerned about TikTok infringing on property rights by allowing artificial intelligence to create many music products based on available data. This could lead to the spread of pirated songs and there are not enough protective measures from the operator.

Artificial intelligence provides the ability to imitate voices, modify voices, and create new songs based on available data. Recently, the TikTok user community shared songs created by artificial intelligence, with voices similar to Justin Bieber, Bad Bunny, and Daddy Yankee. However, this has caused controversy and lost fans when the songs were viewed and shared a lot on the platform.

In October 2023, Universal Music Group, Concord, and ABKCO sued AI startup Anthropic in Tennessee Federal Court (USA), alleging that it copied and illegally distributed a large number of copyrighted songs. Anthropic's AI model Claude created a near-copy of the lyrics to Katy Perry's song "Roar", infringing on the copyright owned by music producer Concord.

Source: https://danviet.vn/vi-sao-taylor-swift-rut-nhac-cua-minh-khoi-tiktok-20240131190611787.htm