The TikToks can’t catch a break. Not long ago, the company was being accused of being a data exfiltration scam by the US government. Last week, its CEO was being grilled for perpetuating deviancy against teenagers and girls. This week, TikTok finds itself at war with the world’s largest music label.
Death by Exposure
Since Napster, software guys have been ripping off billions of dollars of music. Much more than anyone using a cassette deck to create a crappy bootleg. Napster, Kazaa, Limewire, and others gain popularity for spreading copyright protected intellectual property to millions of people.
Fast forward 20 years, and so-called streaming services led by software guys are streaming billions of plays of songs while artists are getting paid fractions of pennies, and labels are getting paid dollars. YouTube, Netflix, and TikTok have earned billions in ad revenue using artists’ ideas and not really paying anything for them.
Famously, Pharrell Williams was paid a paltry $6,500 for 105 million plays of Happy. How is that possible? And how does that encourage artists to keep making quality music. It’s no wonder music is so crappy now. When digital commoditizes music to the point where 105 million plays have no value, why?
The streaming and social media services have claimed what they’ve always claimed.
Music artists are gaining free exposure on our platform.
Streaming and Social Media Companies
Well, freedom ain’t free. (It’s a buck o’ five.)
UMG Has Had Enough
Last week, Universal Music Group declared the nuclear option and demanded TikTok renegotiate license fees for UMG music or they will force the service to remove ALL of their music from the platform. This includes music from SZA, Harry Styles, and many more across SONY Music, Warner Music, BMG, and independent sub labels.
This means no more crazy dances, recipes, and how-to dance videos mixed with the world’s favorite artists.
Universal has given TikTok until the end of February to come terms with a better deal.
Cheering for music labels is a daunting task. It’s like cheering for the cable companies. In this case they might be right. Software companies have been short changing everyone who actually makes the productions streamed on their platforms. And they cover behind the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by claiming other people, us civilians, have posted content on the platform meaning they aren’t infringing on copyrights, someone else will.
Well, that flimsy argument may be coming to an end. And I’m here for it. Maybe the artists can get paid some more money for the hundreds of millions of streams the software companies are making money off of.
-MJ