Harry Styles, Bad Bunny and SZA not recording for Universal Music – but their songs will be pulled from TikTok too

The biggest impact of Universal Music Group and TikTok's licensing impasse likely won't come from UMG's superstar artists leaving the platform, but from the loss of its songwriters.

The loss of music from record labels such as Taylor Swift, Drake, Morgan Wallen, BTS, Olivia Rodrigo and more on TikTok is seismic in itself, but media coverage of the license, which now expired on January 31, has largely he ignored that the world's biggest music company's composers are also leaving. This means that any record touched by a Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) songwriter will also be subject to removal from the platform — even if it was released on a non-UMG label. Artist-songwriters such as Harry Styles, Bad Bunny and SZA are three of the many notable examples of UMPG writers releasing music on non-UMG labels that will be affected. Artists working with UMPG hit makers like Metro Boomin, Jack Antonoff or Fred again.. could also deal with this.

In today's pop and rap markets, writing rooms are considered larger than ever, with credits ranging from one to 30 contributors in extreme cases, such as Travis Scott's “Sicko Mode.” A typical pop song on the radio probably has at least three or four people posting. This, combined with the fact that UMPG is one of the largest music publishers in the world with 4 million copyrights to its name, means that the removal of all songs with UMPG interests will affect almost every other record label and music publisher with some way.

In the third quarter of 2023, UMPG was estimated to have one-fifth of the market share on Billboard's Pop Airplay and Hot 100 charts. For Country Airplay, UMPG accounted for one-tenth of the chart.

There's also a chance this standoff will spread to other publishers this spring. On Thursday (Feb. 1), at the Association of Independent Music Publishers event in Beverly Hills, the president and CEO of the National Music Publishers Association David the Israelite revealed during a speech that his organization's TikTok model license will be renewed in April. This license is negotiated by the trade association and is adopted by a large number of independent publishers in the country.

The NMPA is known for its aggressive approach to licensing negotiations with other social networking sites, games and apps in recent years, including a $250 million lawsuit against X (formerly Twitter) for alleged copyright infringement, and it wouldn't be surprising if the trade organization thought to follow suit with UMG. If this happens, all indie publishers will decide for themselves whether they want to negotiate directly with TikTok or leave the platform.

Already 21 of the 50 songs on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart have been removed due to their association with UMG, but so far these takedowns have focused on the company's recordings rather than releases. Removing UMPG songs will be a much more laborious and complicated task than removing UMG discs, since sometimes there are multiple recordings by multiple artists for the same underlying song. Publishing metadata — which tracks who wrote which song — is also conspicuously missing or incorrect. In some cases, metadata is often not finalized and entered until weeks or months after a song is released, making things even more complicated.

It is widely believed that the process of removing publishing interests will likely take a while and be piecemeal and erratic, potentially forcing the UMPG team to police the platform and issue takedown notices.

Meanwhile, UMG and TikTok show no signs of letting up. TikTok said the music company had “put its own greed above the interests of its artists and songwriters” after the letter was published. UMG hit back with another statement on Thursday, calling TikTok's view of artists and songwriters being compensated “sadly outdated.” Amidst all the finger-pointing, TikTok users are trying to fill in the gaps with non-UMG songs or covers of UMG records, while at least one UMPG writer, Metro Boomin, has taken to the Internet to show his support: “ It's about time. ” published in X.