Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny and others may vanish from TikTok as licensing dispute boils over

Universal Music Group, which represents artists including Taylor Swift, Drake, Adele, Bad Bunny and Billie Eilish, says that it will no longer allow its music on TikTok now that a licensing deal between the two parties has expired.

UMG said that it had not agreed to terms of a new deal with TikTok, and plans to stop licensing content from the artists it represents on the social media platform that is owned by ByteDance, as well as TikTok Music services.

The licensing agreement between UMG and TikTok is expired as of Wednesday.

In a Tuesday letter addressed to artists and songwriters, UMG said that it had been pressing TikTok on three issues: “appropriate compensation for our artists and songwriters, protecting human artists from the harmful effects of AI, and online safety for TikTok’s users.”

UMG said that TikTok proposed paying its artists and songwriters at a rate that’s a fraction of the rate that other major social platforms pay.

“Ultimately TikTok is trying to build a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music,” UMG said.

TikTok pushed back against claims by UMG, saying that it has reached ‘artist-first’ agreements with every other label and publisher.

“Clearly, Universal’s self-serving actions are not in the best interests of artists, songwriters and fans,” TikTok said.

Yet Universal Music also called new technology a potential threat to artists and said that TikTok is developing tools to enable, promote and encourage AI music creation.