Efe
Updated Wednesday, January 31, 2024-07:38
Universal Music Group (UMG),
one of the largest record companies in the world, will remove its songs from the social network
TikTok
due to disagreements in a new contract it was negotiating with the Chinese company.
In a statement, the music industry giant announced that it is ready to withdraw the platform's access to the songs of its artists - including superstars like Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny or Rosalía -
starting this Wednesday at midnight
. which is when the current contract with TikTok expires. Universal accused the Shanghai-based technology company of using harassment and intimidation tactics to force it to accept a contract "less fair and with lower value" than the current one, which expires on January 31.
In the letter, UMG explained that
TikTok
proposed in the new contract negotiations to pay artists much less for views and use of their songs than other social media platforms offer. In turn, the record company detailed, the social network has refused to take sufficient measures to protect artists from the "avalanche" of content generated by Artificial Intelligence and copyright infringements.
"TikTok is trying
to build a business based on music,
without paying a fair value for the music," the letter noted. Content creators on the platform, which already has more than 1 billion users worldwide, frequently use songs by popular Universal artists in their videos. The social network is also used by emerging or already positioned artists to promote their music, which can go viral as users use it in their videos.