Music label yanks artists including Elton John, Taylor Swift, Adele, Drake from TikTok

Music from Taylor Swift, Drake and other Universal Music Group artists will be removed from TikTok at midnight Wednesday after a disagreement over royalty payments.

The contract with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, lets creators use UMG’s music in the app’s videos. In a Tuesday statement, UMG said it won’t seek to renew the pact and accused TikTok of trying to create a music platform without paying the proper money.

“Today, as an indication of how little TikTok compensates artists and songwriters, despite its massive and growing user base, rapidly rising advertising revenue and increasing reliance on music-based content, TikTok accounts for only about 1% of our total revenue,” UMG said in a statement. “Ultimately, TikTok is trying to build a music-based business without paying fair value for the music.”

UMG’s deal with TikTok, which started in 2021, lets users take clips from UMG’s full catalog of artists and incorporate them into their videos, which often garner millions of views. The deal has helped turn some of UMG’s songs into smash hits and generated millions in ad revenue for TikTok.

In response to UMG’s intention to leave  TikTok, the app company said it would be a big mistake.

“Despite Universal’s false narrative and rhetoric, the fact is they have chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform that with well over a billion users serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle for their talent,” TikTok said in a statement Tuesday. “TikTok has been able to reach artist-first agreements with every other label and publisher. Clearly, Universal’s self-serving actions are not in the best interest of artists, songwriters and fans.”

UMG’s decision might throw a wrench into TikTok’s plans to break into the music industry more directly. ByteDance recently launched TikTok Music, which aims to compete with other streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music. The Chinese-based video hosting service has also reportedly been in talks the past year with groups like Warner Music and Sony Music Entertainment.