Two days after Universal Music Group (UMG) announced it would likely pull its music catalog from TikTok over a licensing dispute, publishing giant Primary Wave Music is backing the company's decision.
In a statement released Thursday (Feb. 1), Primary Wave, led by founder/CEO Larry Mestelsaid it applauds UMG “for standing up to TikTok and its blatant disregard for artists and songwriters” while criticizing TikTok's response to UMG's decision, which UMG announced in an open letter to its artists and songwriters on Tuesday (January 30).
“The notion that TikTok will try to rationalize paying artists willfully because, the platform says, it offers artists 'promotion' is a decades-old quandary that has no place in any modern music business,” Primary Wave's statement continued. “Artists and songwriters must be properly compensated for their work and protected from unethical uses of artificial intelligence. Period. We are proud to stand with UMG and artist supporters who have demanded that TikTok properly pay and protect the songwriters and artists who are critical to the platform's growth and cultural relevance.”
Primary Wave represents many artists and estates with deals with UMG, including Olivia Newton John and Bob Marley.
In UMG's open letter, the company — which has superstars like Taylor Swift, BTS, Drake and The Weeknd on its roster — announced that all UMG music will be removed from TikTok after its current licensing deal expires on Thursday ( January 31), while citing deep disagreements over artist compensation, artificial intelligence, TikTok's alleged failure to crack down on infringing music works, and user safety. It also accused TikTok of trying to “intimidate” UMG “to accept a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and which does not reflect their exponential growth” by threatening to selectively remove the music of some of its UMG emerging artists.
A few hours later, TikTok responded by accusing UMG of putting “greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters” while criticizing what it called UMG’s “false narrative and rhetoric”… the fact is that they chose to distance themselves from the powerful supporting a platform with over a billion users that serves as a free means of promotion and discovery for their talent.”
On Thursday (February 1), UMG responded to TikTok saying that the platform's own statement “perfectly sums up its woefully outdated view: Although TikTok (formerly Musical.ly) has built one of the largest and most valuable media platforms social media in the world on the backs of artists and songwriters, TikTok still maintains that artists should be grateful for “free promotion” and that music companies are “greedy” who expect to simply compensate artists and songwriters appropriately , and at similar levels to other social media platforms. I am doing.”
UMG's catalog began disappearing from TikTok on Thursday.
