when Ariana Grande released her latest album eternal sunshine, one of his most beloved tracks, “the boy is mine,” became an instant dance trend on TikTok. At any other time, a viral trend around a major pop star's new song would seem obvious, even normal. But amid the licensing dispute between TikTok and Grande's label, Universal Music Group, it's surprising to find the song on TikTok at all.
Grande's music isn't the only thing that remains on the app long after UMG's latest license, which expired at the end of January. Thanks to the clever tactics of fans, artists and their teams, some notable UMG-related songs have been able to effectively bypass the company's TikTok boycott. While it helps promote those songs individually, trying to circumvent the ban also has a negative effect on the songwriters — and provides UMG hits on TikTok without the app paying a single cent.
One Olivia Rodrigo A fan with the username LouLiv recently uploaded Rodrigo's new single “so american” to TikTok as an “original sound,” and Rodrigo herself has used the sound in a few recent TikToks, helping boost the song's exposure. Grande's fans also created different versions of “the boy is mine” on TikTok, which helped spread the song on the app, as well as other tracks from eternal sunshine.
These original sounds often manipulate the official recording, changing the speed, pitch and/or title of the song to help them bypass TikTok's detection technology, which is used to automatically download songs like UMGs that don't have a license to use the app. A source close to the matter says that TikTok's crawling technology combs through the metadata provided by UMG and UMPG and then removes the content. But the rest of the original sounds that aren't automatically deleted by TikTok are so prevalent that sometimes it can feel like UMG never left the app.
The songs aren't hard to find either. The most popular audio for Rodrigo's “So American,” for example, is simply titled “So American” and already has 33,400 videos made of the song to date. The most used original sound for “the boy is mine” was recently removed after weeks on TikTok, an indication that UMG is issuing takedowns for some original sounds using its catalog. However, many other original sounds for the song remain, such as “the boy is mine” by star and “the boy is mine sped up” by satvrn, amounting to over 100,000 videos created with its original sounds song on TikTok and counting.
For songwriters, there are negative consequences. In two separate text and email chains reviewed by Advertising signnon-UMG recording artists who have worked on recent or upcoming releases with UMPG songwriters have asked the track's songwriters to withhold information about who wrote the song at the time of a track's release to try to circumvent the UMG TikTok ban — and songwriters are in agreement.
Although both sources provided correspondence to Advertising sign wished to remain anonymous to protect their customers, Lucas Keller, The founder/CEO of Milk & Honey and manager of several songwriters and producers confirmed that this happens to songwriters. “Sometimes a song comes out and there's four writers, and one of them is UMPG, and someone steps in and says, 'Hey, can't you block this? Can we register it in three months?” says Keller. “Then the song can be used on TikTok. It's an interesting dark corner of the business that has emerged.”
It's common for pieces to be released without submitting the proper publishing “splits,” meaning the names of the authors and the percentage of ownership each holds, since these negotiations can be lengthy and sometimes contentious. But in the cases they discussed with Keller and the other two sources Advertising sign, the versions of the songs were ready and could have been submitted in time. The only reason they weren't was to allow the artist to promote it on TikTok.
Michelle Lewis, co-founder and CEO of Songwriters of North America (SONA), says these artist questions put songwriters in a bad spot. “Songwriters are the least equipped to negotiate, the lowest on the food chain in these conversations,” says Lewis. He worries that songwriters don't feel they have the ability to push back against these questions if they want to. Meanwhile, omitting this key information could threaten songwriters' ability to receive timely royalties from streaming services if the parties last more than a few months.
Lewis, Keller and three artist managers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, all say Advertising sign that some artists also “think twice” about inviting UMPG writers to sessions. “I've also heard of Universal writers not being invited to camps,” says Lewis. While it's unclear how often this happens, Keller says it “absolutely happens.” Adds Lewis, “It's so flawless. If you don't include the Universal writers, you're basically crossing the line. You lose weight [UMG’s position].”
A spokesperson for UMPG declined to comment on its songwriters facing these specific fallout from the TikTok controversy, but noted letter to the songwriters on Feb. 29, which read in part, “We understand that the disruption is difficult for some of you and your careers, and we are sensitive to how this may affect you.”
Some official recordings with UMPG writers, such as “Texas Hold Em” by Beyonce, who is affiliated with Sony's Columbia Records, still remains on TikTok for unknown reasons. This song, currently ranked No. 5 on Billboard's TikTok Viral 50, was co-written by UMPG Raphael Saadikas well as other songs on Beyonce's new album Cowboy Carter that remain on the platform.
“Texas Hold Em” and some of Beyonce's other tracks have a large number of songwriters — which is a big reason publishing information is often submitted late — so it's possible that TikTok hasn't removed the track because it doesn't have verification that it's linked to in any way with UMPG. Curiously, however, this track was removed from TikTok for a while and then reappeared a few days later. When asked why “Texas Hold Em” was available on TikTok despite its clear ties to UMPG, neither TikTok nor UMPG responded Billboard requests for comment.
Regardless of how these songs avoided being automatically removed by TikTok, UMG could have requested that these popular tracks and original sounds be removed by now. Rights holders can manually request takedowns on TikTok of content they believe infringes their copyrights, such as the original sounds for Grande and Rodrigo and songs like “Texas Hold Em,” and TikTok must remove them for to remain in compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
But tracking all infringing content and submitting takedown requests, especially for a directory of millions like UMG, is notoriously a tedious task. As UMG put it in its original letter to artists and songwriters, it's “monumentally unwieldy” and “the digital equivalent of 'Whack-A-Mole'.” Michael Nash, the company's executive vice president of digital strategy, also added on a Feb. 28 earnings call that the company had sent requests to “unmute millions of videos every day.” However, it is possible to remove infringing tracks if that is the wish of the rights holders.
“This is not a united front,” says Lewis. “It feels indicative of our industry as a whole. We can never get along, and the creator is the one who gets hurt… It's not fair to the songwriters at all, but all of this is under the top concern, which is that TikTok is totally underpaying, undervaluing songwriters. That's number one. They are the ones who started it.”
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/business/tech/ariana-grande-beyonce-songs-tiktok-umg-ban-songwriters-feel-most-1235651606/