The origin of the problem
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2025 8:16 am
The sugary statement from both companies seems to forget the harshness of Universal just three months ago, when the music of its artists was no longer present on the app. “TikTok tried to intimidate us , ” Universal said in the press release issued on January 30, where they explained the main reasons for breaking the agreement with the Chinese-origin application.
At the time, Universal explained that “ TikTok is attempting to build a music-based business without paying fair value for music. As for AI, TikTok is allowing the platform to be flooded with AI-generated recordings, as well as developing tools to enable, promote, and encourage AI music creation on the platform itself, and then demanding a contractual right that would allow this content to massively dilute the royalty pool for human artists, in a move that amounts to nothing less than sponsoring the replacement of artists by AI.”
Furthermore, TikTok makes little effort to deal with the belarus number data vast amount of content on its platform that infringes on our artists’ music and has offered no meaningful solutions to the rising tide of content adjacency issues, let alone the surge of hate speech, bigotry, harassment, and bullying on the platform. The only way to seek removal of infringing or problematic content (such as pornographic deepfakes of artists) is through a hugely cumbersome and inefficient process that amounts to the digital equivalent of the children’s game “Whack-a-Mole.”
But when we proposed that TikTok take similar steps as our other platform partners to address these issues, it responded first with indifference and then with intimidation. As our negotiations continued, TikTok attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal — far less than fair market value and not reflective of its exponential growth .
At the time, Universal explained that “ TikTok is attempting to build a music-based business without paying fair value for music. As for AI, TikTok is allowing the platform to be flooded with AI-generated recordings, as well as developing tools to enable, promote, and encourage AI music creation on the platform itself, and then demanding a contractual right that would allow this content to massively dilute the royalty pool for human artists, in a move that amounts to nothing less than sponsoring the replacement of artists by AI.”
Furthermore, TikTok makes little effort to deal with the belarus number data vast amount of content on its platform that infringes on our artists’ music and has offered no meaningful solutions to the rising tide of content adjacency issues, let alone the surge of hate speech, bigotry, harassment, and bullying on the platform. The only way to seek removal of infringing or problematic content (such as pornographic deepfakes of artists) is through a hugely cumbersome and inefficient process that amounts to the digital equivalent of the children’s game “Whack-a-Mole.”
But when we proposed that TikTok take similar steps as our other platform partners to address these issues, it responded first with indifference and then with intimidation. As our negotiations continued, TikTok attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal — far less than fair market value and not reflective of its exponential growth .