Why many videos on TikTok have gone silent
Music by Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, The Beatles and other artists can no longer be heard on TikTok after a breakdown in negotiations with music group Universal over compensation.
Universal Music Group’s songs were gone from TikTok Thursday after the world’s largest music company said it failed to reach a contract to license its music to the app.
The missing songs have left a void on TikTok, where users often create videos featuring audio from popular tracks. Videos across the social-media platform that had Universal’s songs are now silent with a message at the bottom saying, “Sound removed due to copyright restrictions.”
Billions of TikTok videos use songs from Universal’s catalog. Many of Universal’s signed acts, including Taylor Swift and the Weeknd, had videos on their accounts without audio Thursday.
TikTok said Universal’s music was removed from the app after Wednesday’s contract expiration. The two companies are at loggerheads over the terms of a new deal, including artist pay.
“My jaw dropped,” said Emma Noyes, 28 years old. “The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was open TikTok just to see how my videos were doing and a bunch of videos had suddenly become muted out of nowhere.” Confused, the Chicago-based author searched online until she discovered that Universal had pulled its catalog overnight. Noyes said she wants artists to be fairly compensated, but called the removal a “shock and an inconvenience” for users, especially content creators.
Universal represents some of music’s biggest superstars, including Bad Bunny, Olivia Rodrigo, Drake, SZA and Billie Eilish.
“I’m going to miss hearing all of my favorite songs on the platform. In the past two years since I really started using TikTok, I found most of the new music I love through the platform,” she said, referencing Noah Kahan, who is among Universal’s five artists nominated for the best new artist Grammy award this year.
“My reaction is just that I’m frustrated and I’m really hoping that they’ll be able to come to some sort of solution quickly,” she said.
As TikTok has rocketed in popularity, the app has become an important place for music to gain traction. Artists and labels have prioritized trying to make their songs go viral on TikTok, as those tracks often go on to have outsize success.
Still, music executives say TikTok itself doesn’t contribute much to their revenue. Universal said this week that TikTok accounts for 1% of its revenue. Music companies have generally struck short-term licensing deals with TikTok but they are trying to reach more lucrative, royalty-based deals.
In an open letter this week, Universal said TikTok wanted to cut its payments to artists and songwriters whose songs are used on the app.
A Universal spokesperson said Thursday that TikTok built one of the world’s most successful social-media companies on the backs of musical artists.
“TikTok still argues that artists should be grateful for the ‘free promotion’ and that music companies are ‘greedy’ for expecting them to simply compensate artists and songwriters appropriately, and on similar levels as other social-media platforms currently do,” the spokesperson said.
TikTok said earlier this week that Universal had issued a false narrative and that the social-media company has reached “artist-first” agreements with other labels.
“It is sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group has put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters,” TikTok said on Tuesday.
Many TikTok users were upset about music being stripped from their video edits Thursday. Swift fans were particularly saddened, lamenting that many of their favorite TikTok videos were now totally muted.
When content creator Savannah DeLullo saw the Universal letter Tuesday night, she immediately started downloading some of her most popular videos, many of which had Swift songs.
“I was worried those were going to be muted and that people weren’t going to be able to watch them anymore,” said DeLullo, 23, who posts mostly about Swift and word games for her 1.8 million followers.
“It does change my TikTok experience both as a viewer and as a creator,” DeLullo said. “Before today, if I scrolled on my For You Page on TikTok, most of the videos probably had a Taylor Swift sound behind them. That’s not going to be the case anymore. And as a creator, it does change what videos I can make.” She said she hopes Universal and TikTok will soon quickly reach a deal that fairly compensates artists.
‘It just feels like I’m standing between two colliding planets, and there is nothing I can do.’
Some musical artists who aren’t signed to major music labels said the fracas is an opportunity for them to stand out on the platform now that so many major acts had been removed. Some UMG musicians took to TikTok to explain why their music wasn’t on the platform.
Singer-songwriter Cody Fry said the end of the licensing agreement was bad timing for him. His song “Things You Said” recently went viral in China after being featured in TikTok videos, and he is worried that momentum will come to an end, he said.
“It just feels like I’m standing between two colliding planets, and there is nothing I can do,” Fry said in an interview.
Fry said Universal’s position isn’t unreasonable, and he agrees TikTok doesn’t compensate musical artists enough. But he views TikTok more as a promotional platform rather than a moneymaker, he said. He credits his success on TikTok for landing his deal with Universal’s Decca Records after two earlier songs -- “I Hear a Symphony” and a cover of “Eleanor Rigby” -- went viral on the social-media site.
“I hope they figure it out quickly,” Fry said.
Michael Morris, an analyst with Guggenheim Securities who covers the music industry, said Universal “would probably feel very comfortable to stand firm on their position” given that the licensing deal only accounted for 1% of its revenue.
Morris said he thinks both TikTok and Universal will eventually come to an agreement.
“Each entity is arguably better off working together than not,” Morris said. “But it’s a question of each side being fairly treated.”
The Wall Street Journal
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