On Feb. 1, the Universal Music Group failed to reach their licensing agreement with TikTok. Content creators on TikTok no longer can create videos using music made by artists in UMG, and many TikTokers’ videos have gone silent due to the removal of hundreds of songs.
UMG is the world’s leading music group, including around 570 artists like Taylor Swift, Drake, Lana Del Rey and Olivia Rodrigo. The group released a public letter stating that TikTok wasn’t compensating artists fairly and allowed AI-generated recordings to spread throughout the app. This created a lot of controversy among TikTok users as they defended artists affected by this.
“They should pay these big artists because that’s why people use TikTok,” sophomore Brynn Pfannenstiel said.
Out of the 570 artists who were removed from the social media platform, many up-and-coming artists were largely impacted. Although there are other social media platforms small UMG artists are still a part of, TikTok has become a platform for discovering new artists and music as we saw in 2021 with Olivia Rodrigo’s hit single “Drivers License” and “Heather” by Conan Gray. These artists no longer have TikTok as a platform and cannot grow their fanbase through promoting their music on the app.
“It’s unfair to smaller creators because it’s a big platform that people would use,” sophomore Jules Clasen said.
Multiple musicians have spoken out on the subject such as Noah Kahan and Conan Gray. Kahan originally blew up on TikTok because of his song “Stick Season.” He recently announced the release of his new song “Forever,” which he no longer can promote on the app. Kahan said this will be a struggle for him because it’s how he’s always promoted his music.
“I’ll probably be okay, right? I’ll land on my feet, right?” Kahan said.
Although UMG music is no longer on TikTok, fans still appear supportive of their favorite artists by leaving supportive comments on their social media posts. There are alternative social media platforms to watch videos like Instagram Reels and YouTube so fans can still support artists despite them no longer being on TikTok.
Artist’s fans have flooded social media with their opinions on the missing music and the artists removed from the platform. There has also been debate over how many users will continue using the app with major artists being taken off, and whether these artists will be brought back.
“People will continue to complain about it until they bring it back because I’m sure they will,” Pfannenstiel said.
