Common Music Group‘s dispute with TikTok – primarily over the sum of money the video service pays for music licensing – continues to be the discuss of Grammy Week. Now a number of different important music corporations are throwing their weight behind UMG’s mission.
Yesterday (February 1), Main Wave publicly backed Common’s place, which has seen UMG decline to agree phrases with TikTok over a brand new licensing settlement. In consequence, recordings represented by UMG have already began to grow to be unavailable in TikTok’s pre-cleared music library.
(Common’s music publishing library – which spans to roughly 4 million songs – is predicted to grow to be absolutely unlicensed on TikTok on the finish of February, resulting from a 30-day grace interval in UMPG’s settlement with the platform.)
Main Wave represents music written by icons together with Bob Marley, Stevie Nicks, Smokey Robinson, Whitney Houston, Burt Bacharach, and Prince. It stated in a press release: “Because the world’s main impartial writer of iconic and legendary music, we applaud Common Music Group for standing as much as TikTok and its blatant disregard for artists and songwriters. The notion that TikTok would attempt to rationalize willfully underpaying artists as a result of, the platform says, it presents artists ‘promotion’ is a decades-old canard that has no place in any trendy music enterprise.
“Artists and songwriters have to be compensated appropriately for his or her work and shielded from unethical makes use of of AI. Interval. We’re proud to face alongside UMG and the artist advocates which have referred to as upon TikTok to appropriately pay and defend the songwriters and artists who’re important to the expansion and cultural relevance of the platform.”
As we speak (February 2), extra important music corporations have publicly backed UMG’s place.
Andrew Bergman is CEO of Downtown Music Holdings, which – throughout publishing administration, recorded music distribution, neighboring rights, and different companies – represents greater than 5,000 enterprise shoppers and over 4 million particular person creators. In consequence, Downtown claims to be “the biggest pure-play service supplier within the international music trade”. (One key instance: Downtown now administers the publishing catalog of Spirit Music Group, which owns over 100,000 songs.)
“It’s time to recalibrate the partnership between the music trade and TikTok to re-balance the ledger.”
Andrew Bergman, Downtown Music Holdings
In a press release issued to MBW in response to the Common/TikTok information, Bergman stated: “We attempt at Downtown to make sure that artists, songwriters and rights holders are equitably compensated for his or her inventive endeavors.
“Over the past a number of years, regardless of the meteoric success of the platform, this has not been the case with TikTok. It’s time to recalibrate the partnership between the music trade and TikTok to re-balance the ledger.”
Elsewhere, the Nationwide Music Publishers Affiliation (NMPA) has additionally reacted to UMG’s dispute with TikTok – specifically the ByteDance platform’s declare that it presents “highly effective help” to artists by serving “as a free promotional and discovery car for his or her expertise”.
NMPA President/CEO David Israelite stated at this time: “Music is a driving drive behind TikTok’s success and this can be very unlucky that TikTok doesn’t appear to worth the music creators that gas its enterprise. We imagine songwriters must be valued and compensated pretty, and we imagine synthetic intelligence ought to by no means be used to dilute the worth of human creativity.
“Music is a driving drive behind TikTok’s success and this can be very unlucky that TikTok doesn’t appear to worth the music creators that gas its enterprise.”
David Israelite, NMPA
“We have now seen different social-media platforms make the error of claiming promotion ought to substitute for honest compensation. It’s a dropping argument and it’s incorrect.”
(The NMPA has its personal attention-grabbing historical past with TikTok, in fact. The org signed a multi-year licensing settlement, on behalf of its members, with TikTok/ByteDance in 2020, after publicly threatening to sue the platform for copyright infringement.)
The music biz’s massive information from earlier at this time? Merck Mercuriadis is transferring as much as Chairman at Hipgnosis Music Administration, and is being succeeded as CEO on the firm by Ben Katovsky.
Following that announcement, MBW spoke to Mercuriadis, who made clear in an interview – which shall be revealed on MBW within the coming days – that his “dedication to Hipgnosis Music Administration has by no means been stronger”.
However we additionally clearly needed to ask him for his tackle the story of the week: UMG vs. TikTok.
“Each digital music and social media service has to acknowledge the worth of music. Common has achieved the suitable factor right here.”
Merck Mercuriadis, Hipgnosis
Mercuriadis stated: “TikTok has confirmed itself to be a terrific catalyst for the consumption of music. Take a look at Fleetwood Mac’sRumours, on which Hipgnosis is delighted and privileged to characterize the Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie [songwriting cuts]. Rumours has been a top-selling album in recent times, and TikTok has had an enormous function to play in that story.
“However Hipgnosis has, for the reason that starting, been an enormous advocate for the truth that we have to change the place the songwriter sits within the financial equation. Ought to TikTok be paying increased charges? Completely. Each digital music and social media service has to acknowledge the worth of music.
“TikTok has the flexibility to be a drive for good within the consumption of music. Common has achieved the suitable factor right here, from the angle of creating positive that the ‘900 pound gorilla’ of our enterprise is setting a tone that isn’t solely in one of the best curiosity of music rights-owners, however songwriters particularly.”Music Enterprise Worldwide
