TikTok could remove music from Phoebe Bridgers, Mitski, and Nirvana from its platform: find out the reason.
A new licensing agreement is about to affect the platform.
Negotiations between Merlin and TikTok have taken a negative turn, and Merlin has warned about the possibility of withdrawing a significant amount of independent music from the platform. Merlin represents over 30,000 independent record labels, and their current agreement with TikTok ends on October 31. According to reports, TikTok "withdrew" from the "negotiations before they even began."
In a letter to its members, Merlin communicated that the social media company has no interest in renewing the contract; instead, it plans to license directly to Merlin's members, which would reduce the collective power of the group. The letter states: "Their approach [of seeking direct agreements with Merlin's members] suggests that [TikTok] believes its goals can be better achieved by fragmenting Merlin's membership, which we believe will serve to minimize their payments." Furthermore, it emphasizes that Merlin was created to defend its members and will not support an approach that devalues the community.
A spokesperson for TikTok stated that the platform wants to offer all the music in the world to its users and is committed to collaborating with both the independent sector and major labels and publishers. According to TikTok, its community of over one billion music fans values the diversity and richness that independent music brings to the platform. TikTok's intention to establish direct agreements with Merlin's members is to keep their music available on the app.
Without the collective bargaining power that Merlin provides, each record label will have to negotiate a new licensing agreement before the end of October. This situation is reminiscent of the previous one with the National Music Publishers Association, whose negotiations also resulted in direct agreements. If the negotiations between Merlin and TikTok do not reach an agreement, the catalogs of artists represented by Merlin will be removed from the app. Among the artists that are part of Merlin are Phoebe Bridgers, Mitski, Mac DeMarco, Nirvana, and Thundercat.
Additionally, in its letter, Merlin mentioned that TikTok claims not to negotiate due to alleged fraud committed by some of Merlin's members, who supposedly posted songs or remixes that are not owned by the label. TikTok seeks to negotiate with individual labels only regarding the implicated members. However, Merlin argues that the real reason behind the strategy is to secure more economical agreements that Merlin would not allow. This situation arises after Universal Music Group (UMG) faced difficulties in reaching a licensing agreement with TikTok in January; in that case, UMG withdrew its catalog for nearly four months due to disputes over artist protection from artificial intelligence, online security, and fair compensation for artists and songwriters. Their music returned to the platform in May.