Taylor Swift temporarily disappeared from Tiktok. Getty Images; Collage: Lisa Kempke
Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Harry Styles and numerous other musicians are returning with their music on Tiktok. The background is a settled dispute between the Chinese short video platform and Universal Music. Business Insider exclusively has an internal email from Universal CEO Lucian Grainge. In it he announces where Tiktok has caved.
Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Harry Styles return to Tiktok with their music after settling dispute with Universal Music. According to Business Insider, Tiktok has agreed to important changes in several critical areas, including AI, platform security and compensation. Universal Music previously had all of its artists’ music blocked on the platform, resulting in copyright restrictions.
Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Harry Styles and numerous other musicians are returning with their music on Tiktok. The background is a settled dispute between the Chinese short video platform and Universal Music.
Business Insider has an internal email from Universal CEO Lucian Grainge to employees informing them of the news. In it he writes, among other things: “I am very pleased to be able to share with you the good news that our dispute with Tiktok has ended with an extremely positive result: Tiktok has agreed to important changes in several critical areas (including artificial intelligence, platform security , remuneration) and we will license our music to Tiktok again.” Tiktok has now explained what this means in concrete terms Press release communicated. It says that there should be better remuneration for artists in the future. There should also be protection with regard to generative AI.
“Important step” for the industry
The CEO further writes in his email: “With this agreement, we have taken another important step to guide the development of the industry towards a future in which human art must be respected, artists and songwriters are treated fairly and their fans Platforms are available that better prioritize security and integrity.”
At the beginning of the year, the music conglomerate had a bitter argument. Ultimately, Universal Music had all of its artists’ music blocked on the platform. Since then, users have no longer been able to use the music; videos that have already been published with corresponding music titles appear with the message: “Sound has been removed due to copyright restrictions”.
World stars like Elton John and Taylor Swift disappeared from the platform
The artists affected included global stars such as Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Adele, The Weeknd, Drake, Elton John, Billie Eilish and Coldplay.
CEO Lucian Grainge also writes in his email how grateful he is for the support from the music community. “Artists’ rights organizations, independent labels, music publishers, music lobbyists and of course so many individual artists and songwriters have openly supported us and recognized the importance of what we want to achieve. They have strengthened our resolve to fight for the result we have achieved: an agreement that benefits not only the artists and songwriters of UMG (Universal Music Group, Anm. d. Red.) not only benefits the music industry as a whole,” says Grainge.
As an organization committed to moving the industry forward, we expect “inevitable conflict,” writes Grainge. And people “even accept them”. “But ultimately, such conflicts are about finding a higher common ground on which progress can be made.”