Universal Music ends boycott of TikTok with new licensing deal

Universal Music Group has ended its months-long boycott of TikTok, returning music from some of the world’s top artists to the billion-plus users on the Chinese-owned social media platform.

The new licensing deal would lead to “improved remuneration” for Universal’s songwriters and artists, the company said on Thursday. It includes new promotional and commercial agreements, and “industry-leading protections” over the use of generative artificial intelligence.

Universal, the world’s largest record company, told TikTok to remove its music from the platform at the end of January, criticising the Chinese-owned company for failing to pay fair value for use of its songs and raising concerns over the impact of AI.

The public feud meant that Universal’s artists were unable to reach the vast audiences that use TikTok, which has become a crucial music discovery and promotional tool to reach younger audiences.

However, the record company’s position was seen by some music executives to have been undermined after the decision by Taylor Swift — Universal’s biggest artist — to reinstate her music on TikTok last month. Swift owns the copyrights to her recordings, unlike many other artists.

Other record label owners such as Sony Music have been watching the battle between the two sides keenly ahead of the end of their own current licensing deals with TikTok.

In a memo to staff seen by the Financial Times, Sir Lucian Grainge, chief executive of Universal Music Group, said that the “dispute with TikTok has ended with a decidedly positive outcome”, adding that the Chinese-owned group had “agreed to key changes in several critical areas (including artificial intelligence, platform safety, remuneration)”.

Universal did not disclose the financial terms of the deal. But in the memo, Grainge said “artist and songwriter compensation will be greater than under our prior TikTok deal, and the total value UMG’s artists and songwriters garner from this partnership will be more closely aligned with other platforms in the social music category”. 

This includes new tools and processes to help provenance and attribution, helping artists and songwriters to get paid for their work.

TikTok users will be able to again listen to the label owner’s music as well as use its songs to create videos. Shou Zi Chew, chief executive of TikTok, said: “Music is an integral part of the TikTok ecosystem and we are pleased to have found a path forward.”

As part of the agreement, the two sides will work together on new ways to drive revenues using TikTok’s ecommerce services as well as to develop campaigns supporting UMG’s artists globally.

In addition, TikTok and UMG said they would seek to “protect human artistry” from the rising use of AI, which can be used to alter, merge or create new songs from music by existing artists, as well as to ensure the resulting “economics . . . flow to those artists and songwriters”. 

TikTok said it was committed to working with UMG to remove unauthorised AI-generated music from the platform, as well as to implement tools to improve artist and songwriter attribution.

In his memo, Grainge said that TikTok had addressed the primary concern that AI-generated content would “massively dilute the royalty pool for human artists”. He added that the platform had made several commitments regarding AI, including on training AI models without consent.