UMG Reconciles with TikTok, Restoring Music from Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, and Various Artists

Taylor Swift is the one who started this change. In mid-April, the singer born in 1989 became the first artist under Universal Music Group (UMG) to be allowed to broadcast his music on TikTok even though the two sides are still in conflict.

Universal Music Group ‘makes peace’ with TikTok

Specifically, UMG has just signed a new ” multi-way licensing agreement ” with TikTok, allowing music from all artists, musicians and labels around the world to return to the popular video platform.

Previously, at the beginning of this year, UMG decided to withdraw the entire song catalog from TikTok. UMG stated 3 reasons for “stopping” with this platform including inadequate payment of fees to artists/musicians, failure to protect artists from the harmful effects of AI and online safety for users.

"UMG — The conflict ended, the music of UMG-affiliated artists officially returned to TikTok.

At that time, music products of a series of famous international stars including Drake, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga or BTS… were all disabled on TikTok. In the Vietnamese market, many artists such as tlinh, Wren Evans, MONO… also suffer from the same situation.

After many months of tension, the conflict between UMG and TikTok has officially ended. In the new agreement, TikTok announced that it will provide UMG musicians/artists with improved compensation, while also providing new advertising and engagement opportunities for recordings and songs. In particular, TikTok affirms that it will introduce measures to protect the music industry from the emergence of AI technology.

Taylor Swift’s music reappears on TikTok

Before the release of the studio album “The Tortured Poets Department”, fans were extremely surprised to discover the songs released by Taylor Swift from 2019 until now, specifically in the record “Lover ” and the albums that the female singer re-recorded suddenly returned to TikTok. These included a number of hit songs such as “Cruel Summer”, “Cardigan”, “Lover”, “22″, “ME! “, “Style”…

One of the reasons given is because Taylor Swift owns the master – that is, the original recording of the songs – from 2019 onwards. This allows her to control how her work is used, such as distribution or licensing of music to appear in advertising.