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We Must Call Time Out on TikTok
- blowsand 3y agoHas there been any real balanced reporting on this? Obviously this statement is biased to Universal’s profit motives, and that crafty 1% number.. they should share the same data for their other platform partnerships. Chatter amongst acquaintances who work for various social media companies is that Universal has been attempting to play companies against each other, and their bluff was called by TikTok. I can’t confirm that as I wasn’t in the room, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I do think this will end up having been a misstep for Universal - TikTok, Meta, Snap, and others have no shortage of catalogs and partnerships to promote music.
- seanhunter 3y agoHere's an example of an article that gives both sides. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/jan/31/tiktok-universal-music-group-umg-music-catalogue-rights-negotiation https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/jan/31/tiktok-univers... I'm going to say it's highly unlikely that the chatter among your social media friends is accurate for the same reason you stated - they weren't in the room any more than you were. The people who were in the room for sure aren't chatting about it.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- shdh 3y agoSurprised TikTok hasn’t been banned in western countries yet.
- blitzar 3y agoThey havent banned the homegrown brainwashing apps - why start now?
- afiori 3y agoThis is a meaningless equivalence if you want to be even slightly cynic: the homegrown brainwashing apps are a surveilance tresure trove for the government [0]. Foreign brainwashing apps are too but for other governments. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act
- grotorea 3y agoForeign semi-hostile brainwashing apps do seem a lot easier to ban.
- jocaal 3y agoYou can easily access the chinese version of tiktok and from what I've seen, douyin has exactly the same garbage as tiktok. These apps aren't hostile for national security reasons. They are hostile for monetary reasons.
- londons_explore 3y agoThey paid/bribed the US to not be banned in the form of a hugely overpriced services deal to Oracle.
- say_it_as_it_is 3y agowhat elected officials were shareholders of Oracle?
- dspillett 3y agoThey don't have to be directly involved in Oracle, just receiving *ahem* help and advice from lobbyists with appropriate connections.
- nness 3y agoWestern countries, at least the ones I've lived in, don't often out-right ban software. It's unpopular and likely to garner scrutiny from both the press and constituents, but largely, it's a political grenade — you have to constantly fight the software suppliers each release; it's a signal to businesses that the government is not going to protect your commercial interests; and philosophically it's just over-reach. Banning TikTok is akin to "banning all apps from a country" and the obvious response will be that country will ban your apps in return... and businesses operating in those countries may be quite unhappy to find their market evaporate.
- Sabinus 3y ago>the obvious response will be that country will ban your apps in return I agree in general, although in this particular most Western apps are banned in TikTok country of origin anyway.
- miroljub 3y agoTikTok is published by ByteDance, a public company incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Can you tell which "western apps" are banned in Cayman Islands?
- goriloser 3y agoAnd Microsoft/Apple/Facebook sells stuff in Europe through a company incorporated in Ireland. Does that make those companies Irish?
- Sabinus 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ByteDance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ByteDance It's a Chinese company. The location of incorporation is pretty tangential to the discussion of app censorship.
- felsokning 3y ago>Surprised TikTok hasn’t been banned in western countries yet. Other than the GFoC (Great Firewall of China) scenario, how would they be banned? Maybe dropping all route broadcasts that contain TikTok's range[s]? Even if were possible to ban them, you have the more likely scenario that they drop an endpoint on the dark web to get around that (see: Facebook[0]) and you're back at square one. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_onion_address https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_onion_address
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dns_snek 3y agoIt's not that deep, these are casual users who by and large won't try to bypass restrictions. All it would realistically take is the app's removal from Google's and Apple's app store and null-routing their IP ranges would kill them for good. The intersection between people who use TikTok and people who are willing to use Tor for daily entertainment is probably a dozen people.
- dragonelite 3y agoWell how will western countries do their global psy-ops actions on the younger generation late teens early 20s. Most definitely not on facebook and twitter :p They just hate it that they can't use excessive censorship like they do on western made social media platforms. Only leverage western countries has at the moment is using/abusing ads revenue and IP laws.
- guilhas 3y agoHave you heard of Youtube shorts? Same dumb/disturbing content, doesn't need login, comes pre-installed in every device My nephews just grab any device and start scrolling
- hbossy 3y agoI'm more interested in having an option to remove all tiktok-like short video suggestions from Facebook, Youtube and Instagram apps. It's easy in the browser but not on my phone.
- novolunt 3y ago[dead]
- londons_explore 3y agoIf the contract expires tonight, I assume this blog post is just leverage to get better terms for any renewal. I think it would be awesome to see tiktok for a few days blocking all universal music content and see how crowds react. I suspect crowds will soon adapt to AI and indie music.
- raverbashing 3y ago> TikTok’s tactics are obvious: use its platform power to hurt vulnerable artists and try to intimidate us into conceding to a bad deal that undervalues music and shortchanges artists and songwriters as well as their fans. Yes, the record companies want to keep their monopoly on that
- astro- 3y agoUniversal must be in a pretty difficult negotiating position here. The artists they represent want their music to be distributed on TikTok. The royalties are nice, but the primary value is likely the popularity boost of having your music featured in insanely viral videos and trends with billions of views. Universal doesn't get a cut of that though (aside from increased streaming revenue elsewhere).
- circlefavshape 3y agoUniversal aren't just representing artists - often (or usually?) they own the copyright in the recordings
- toddmorey 3y agoIt launched TikTok Music last year in select countries as a rival to Spotify and Apple Music. Universal likely trying to get ahead of TikTok becoming a full music platform.
- bregma 3y agoAh the "exposure as payment" argument. Every artist is familiar with it. Landlords, grocery stores, and bill collectors won't accept exposure as payment. If you live on expousre, you die from exposure.
- asadotzler 3y agoRadio broadcasters tried and failed to use that same argument. Artists deserve the exposure AND the money.
- dspillett 3y agoWhile I am absolutely no fan of TikTok, I've stayed away as much as practical for a collection of reasons and intend to continue doing so, I'm torn between two similar takes on this: 1. Isn't it the height of hypocrisy for an entity like Universal to be questioning anyone else on the subject of “the issue of artist and songwriter compensation” 2. You know you are really treating the creators badly when Universal are calling you out on it. I doubt Universal's real concern has as much to do with artist incomes as this statement suggests, and I would be interested to see some of artists' takes on the matter.
- bhouston 3y agoOne of the biggest shareholders of UMG is Pershing Square which is Bill Ackman’s company. Also UMG has been vocal about its support for Israel. Thus it’s calls for user safety (point 3) is probably related to other demands that TikTok reduce the vitality of pro-Palestinian content similar to what Meta is doing: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/20/meta-systemic-censorship-palestine-content https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/20/meta-systemic-censorship... https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/10/tiktok-faces-renewed-calls-for-a-ban-amid-pro-hamas-anti-israel-claims https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/10/tiktok-faces-renew... https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/10/10/billionaire-ackman-others-pledge-they-wont-hire-harvard-students-who-signed-letter-criticizing-israel/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/10/10/billion...
- zcrar70 3y agoMy understanding of what is happening: * Universal want TikTok to pay similar fees for use of music as other online platforms such as YouTube ($0.004 per stream) or Spotify ($0.0039 per stream for US listeners) * TikTok views its platform as a means for artists to promote their music, and therefore doesn't think it should be paying anywhere near as much Interestingly: - there was a similar argument for the value of radio plays (pre-internet). Radio stations viewed themselves as a way to promote the artists' work, and argued that they therefore shouldn't pay any royalties. - this has since been settled resolved in favour of the music makers; from what I can see, in the UK, BBC Radio 1 pays around £40/minute in royalties - the amount of royalties an artist receives from the record company varies significantly, but is usually in the order of 10-20% (Taylor Swift will have a better deal than a small indie band); plus any publishing revenue. Some artists also have different percentages for different types of revenue (e.g. streaming vs CD sales) - this article has a good overview of how royalties get split for streaming in the US: https://www.billboard.com/pro/music-streaming-royalty-payments-explained-song-profits/ https://www.billboard.com/pro/music-streaming-royalty-paymen... My view: * TikTok should pay royalties for the music it uses (music is an integral part of the package that makes them so hugely profitable) * UMG should pay artists a higher proportion of streaming (and other) revenues * streaming companies should be paying more per stream (may imply a price increase for streaming services)
- IanCal 3y ago> this has since been settled resolved in favour of the music makers; from what I can see, in the UK, BBC Radio 1 pays around £40/minute in royalties (around 10,000 times more than Spotify) That's not a comparable figure, there can be millions of people listening.
- zcrar70 3y agoYou are quite right, the structure for radio is different than for streaming. Also, at the time, records / CD / cassette sales were significantly higher than they are now, so artist revenue from radio then was a much smaller proportion of the total than streaming is today. What I found interesting was the precedent; the argument that radio was a means to promote artists, and therefore shouldn't pay royalties, was discounted even in those (to artists) much more favourable circumstances.
- Towaway69 3y agoIs this a case of the pot calling the kettle black? A large music distributor complaining about another large music distributor doing it better. My sympathies lie with the artists, not the corporates.
- ajot 3y agoBetween MegaGloboCorp and the CCP, I choose both to disappear.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kulor 3y agoThey've done a good job of amplifying the injustice narrative here. However, it screams that they've come away from the negotiating table with their tail between their legs and are trying to save face by blaming the other party as the bad guy. Will artists stick with UMG if they have a big enough "independent" distribution through TikTok, YouTube etc. That's got to be Universal's biggest concern.
- londons_explore 3y agoNote that there are some small music distributors (eg. RouteNote) who give a much larger share to artists. (85% to the artist, 15% to the distributor) Note however that very few successful musicians started on those small distributors. That suggests the marketing done by the bigger distributors is still very important for a musicians success.
- seec 3y agoI think you have it backward. All successful musicians are in majors because they were the ones who could propose the best deal at the start of their career. It doesn't take a genius to recognize when a musician is much better than average, and sure marketing will help a bunch but you can't market something that sucks, it will fail regardless. So, the way it works is the reverse of what you think: good musicians get to be in majors because they are much better than average, and they will get a lot of advantage from the infrastructure/logistique/network from the big players early on, even if it means they will need to take a cut in the future. That and the fact that if you are a musician starting out, you are very likely to be poor or in an uninteresting odd job, a major who can just buy you out with enough cash to cover expenses for years is exactly what you are looking for.... And in the end, I don't think the marketing matters much. A good track is a good track, which is why some get to be reused endlessly. The reason they do marketing is because they can afford it, from all the cash the artist is making for them ever directly or indirectly. All this to say that these are the reasons most people strongly dislike the major rightsholder companies; while they have their usefulness in some way, it feels quite bad seeing them make so much profit while plenty of artists barely get by. And the artists they "defend" are mostly the extremely successful ones that are so wealthy those license conversations seem very greedy and out there. Sure, TikTok makes money but it is not strongly related to music and the artists who would get payouts are the ones already making big bucks.
- andyish 3y agoWhy aren't social media sites/apps considered as publishing platforms and subject to the same laws? I wouldn't be able to put a TV ad on SkySports with a song in the background of it without paying for usage.
- Kiro 3y agoI feel sorry for any artists on Universal. Not having their songs on TikTok is a death sentence for their career.
- culturestate 3y ago> I feel sorry for any artists on Universal. Not having their songs on TikTok is a death sentence for their career. This is a little hyperbolic, mate. I don’t think the Rolling Stones or Taylor Swift are sweating TikTok.
- etrautmann 3y agoBoth were globally famous prior to TikTok… it’s a real question how artists could break out without a major discovery platform today.
- londons_explore 3y agoTaylor Swift would take a big hit... Taylor's main fans are the tiktok generation, and if they don't hear that music multiple times a day they'll forget quickly (short attention span).
- goriloser 3y ago[flagged]
- StrLght 3y agoThey're still the bully. They just pretend not to be one. They just couldn't bully TikTok privately, so they're doing it publicly now.
- xnx 3y agoTikTok's response: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/tiktok-statement-in-response-to-universal-music-group https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/tiktok-statement-in-respon... "It is sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group has put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters. Despite Universal's false narrative and rhetoric, the fact is they have chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform with well over a billion users that serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle for their talent. 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 interests of artists, songwriters and fans."
- DueDilligence 3y ago[dead]