Music business experts predict that the ongoing dispute between TikTok and the largest music company, Universal Music Group (UMG), could yield gains for unsigned entertainers and TikTok competitors, such as YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.
After a breakdown in contract negotiations last month, UMG pulled its music from the popular social media app including tunes by singers and rappers, such as Drake, Taylor Swift, Alicia Keys, and Billie Eilish.
“This might be a great time for independent artists to get their music out there and have their voices heard because you don’t have the UMG artists on there,” musician and Hofstra University Department of Music professor Kenyatta Beasley told The Epoch Times. “There’s less competition.”
The Wall Street Journal reported on Feb. 28 that the dispute is over how much money UMG is paid when TikTok users weave short clips of their artists’ music into dance videos posted on the site.
TikTok and UMG did not respond to requests for comment.
“TikTok is looking to make deals with independent artists directly and they might make a move to fill out the void that UMG leaves to get away from licensing with the big major labels altogether,” Mr. Beasley said. “Through a deal with DistroKid, they have a wide array of indie artists who just upload their music to DistroKid.”
DistroKid states on its website that it is the first distributor to help artists get their releases uploaded to TikTok.
“How did it try to intimidate us? By selectively removing the music of certain of our developing artists, while keeping on the platform our audience-driving global stars,” the letter states. “TikTok’s tactics are obvious: use its platform power to hurt vulnerable artists and try to intimidate us into conceding to a bad deal that undervalues music and shortchanges artists and songwriters as well as their fans. We will never do that.”
Some established artists are working around the standoff.
For example, when Gwen Stefani learned in early February of the dispute, she reportedly successfully released a tune called Purple Irises, which she had recorded with her husband Blake Shelton, on the popular app on Feb. 9 through his label Warner Music instead of UMG.
“It’s pretty clear that she thought this was a better strategy and she’s been rewarded for that,” Launcher Music CEO Charles Alexander told The Epoch Times.
Neither Ms. Stefani nor Mr. Shelton replied to requests for comment.
Mr. Alexander is also CEO of ViNIL, an artificial intelligence (AI) identity licensing and brand management platform.
He received his first call about the dispute’s impact on Feb. 27 from one of the artists he markets and distributes whose song was misidentified as a UMG title.
“Two or three of her songs were muted and we’re trying to figure out why,” Mr. Alexander told The Epoch Times. “There’s no obvious Universal connection. It’s not published by Universal. She’s not a Universal label artist. The distribution doesn’t go through Universal. So, something’s going on there. We’re troubleshooting that.”
TikTok has been used by UMG and other major music companies, such as Sony and Warner, to promote their artist’s songs much in the way that radio was used before the dawn of the internet.
While UMG’s master licensing deal with TikTok expired on Jan. 31 and the publishing deal ended last week, Sony and Warner’s relationship with TikTok are intact.
However, due to co-writing, SONY and Warner artists are being impacted, according to Mr. Alexander.
“The Department of Justice should look into that because those folks have nothing to do with Universal and yet their music is being pulled off,” he said. “That’s significant because people who are assigned to Sony or Warner are nowhere within the vicinity of a UMG contract. That’s a problem.”
TikTok has more videos containing music than YouTube and Meta platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook.
A study by Pex.com found that between January 2019 and December 2023, 85 percent of TikTok’s videos involved music compared to 58 percent of videos on Instagram and 49 percent on Facebook.
TikTok’s advantage, however, could fade if the UMG-TikTok stalemate persists and users adapt to the alternatives.
“YouTube Shorts and Instagram pay more than TikTok even though YouTube Shorts is still a bit of a Wild Wild West,” music marketing expert Alex Akimov told The Epoch Times. “We’re pivoting to Instagram stories, reels, and digital advertising. Others are pivoting to Snapchat. The problem with YouTube Shorts right now is nobody knows how to use it properly. YouTube Shorts is what TikTok used to be in 2021.”
Mr. Akimov is the CEO of the music marketing agency Simple Social and the creator marketplace Sound.me.
“Universal right now is proving that TikTok is not the only way, which is a great thing,” Mr. Akimov added.
