Songs by some of the biggest pop stars in the world, including Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Drake, Rihanna, Ariana Grande, and many more, are set to disappear from TikTok on Wednesday night.
The music will be taken down after Universal Music Group (UMG), which owns the songs, failed to reach a deal with the platform to renew its licensing agreement.
In an open letter on Tuesday, UMG wrote that its contract with TikTok expires on January 31, and that during conversations with senior executives, UMG pressed TikTok on three critical 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 added that through negotiations, TikTok offered to pay UMG artists “a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay.”
According to NBC News, about “60% of TikTok videos include music.”
It’s an integral part of the app, used in a number of different ways to create dance trends and jokes and provide background music for aesthetic videos.
Late Tuesday, in a statement posted to X, TikTok accused UMG of putting “their own greed about the artists and songwriters” .
In the statement, TikTok said the record industry behemoth is pushing a “false narrative and rhetoric,” noting that it was able to reach agreements with “every other label and publisher,” but “Universal’s self-serving actions are not in the best interests of artists, songwriters, and fans.”
The catalogs of Jamaican artists under subsidiary labels include Buju Banton and Masicka, who are signed to Def Jam, Shenseea, signed to Interscope through a partnership deal with Rich Immigrants, and Stefflon Don, who has her own imprint Island 54 under Universal Music.