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When fake, sexually-explicit images of Taylor Swift flooded social media last week, it shocked the world. But legal experts weren’t exactly surprised, saying it’s just a glaring example of a growing problem — and one that’ll keep getting worse without changes to the law and tech industry norms.
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The images, some of which were reportedly viewed millions of times on X before they were pulled down, were so-called deepfakes — computer-generated depictions of real people doing fake things. Their spread on Thursday quickly prompted outrage from Swifties, who mass-flagged the images for removal and demanded to know how something like that was allowed to happen to the beloved pop star.
But for legal experts who have been tracking the growing phenomenon of non-consensual deepfake pornography, the episode was sadly nothing new.
“This is just the highest profile instance of something that has been victimizing many people, mostly women, for quite some time now,” said Woodrow Hartzog, a professor at Boston University School of Law who studies privacy and technology law.
Experts warned Billboard that the Swift incident could be the sign of things to come — not just for artists and other celebrities, but for normal individuals with fewer resources to fight back. The explosive growth of artificial intelligence tools over the past year has made deepfakes far easier to create, and some web platforms have become less aggressive in their approach to content moderation in recent years.
“What we’re seeing now is a particularly toxic cocktail,” Hartzog said. “It’s an existing problem, mixed with these new generative AI tools and a broader backslide in industry commitments to trust and safety.”
To some extent, images like the ones that cropped up last week are already illegal. Though no federal law squarely bans them, 10 states around the country have enacted statutes criminalizing non-consensual deepfake pornography. Victims like Swift can also theoretically turn to more traditional existing legal remedies to fight back, including copyright law, likeness rights, and torts like invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Such images also clearly violate the rules on all major platforms, including X. In a statement last week, the company said it was “actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them,” as well as “closely monitoring the situation to ensure that any further violations are immediately addressed.” Sunday to Tuesday, the site disabled searches for “Taylor Swift” out of “an abundance of caution as we prioritize safety on this issue.”
But for the victims of such images, legal remedies and platform policies often don’t mean much in practice. Even if an image is illegal, it is difficult and prohibitively expensive to try to sue the anonymous people who posted it; even if you flag an image for breaking the rules, it’s sometimes hard to convince a platform to pull it down; even if you get one pulled down, others crop up just as quickly.
“No matter her status, or the number of resources Swift devotes to the removal of these images, she won’t be completely successful in that effort,” said Rebecca A. Delfino, a professor and associate dean at Loyola Law School who has written extensively about harm caused by pornographic deepfakes.
That process is extremely difficult, and it’s almost always reactive — started after some level of damage is already done. Think about it this way: Even for a celebrity with every legal resource in the world, the images still flooded the web. “That Swift, currently one of the most powerful and known women in the world, could not avoid being victimized shows the exploitive power of pornographic deepfakes,” Delfino said.
There’s currently no federal statute that squarely targets the problem. A bill called the Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act, introduced last year, would allow deepfake victims to file civil lawsuits, and criminalize such images when they’re sexually-explicit. Another, called the Deepfake Accountability Act, would require all deepfakes to be disclaimed as such and impose criminal penalties for those that aren’t. And earlier this month, lawmakers introduced No AI FRAUD Act, which would create a federal right for individuals to sue if their voice or any other part of their likeness is used without permission.
Could last week’s incident spur lawmakers to take action? Don’t forget: Ticketmaster’s messy 2022 rollout of tickets for Taylor’s Eras tour sparked congressional hearings, investigations by state attorneys general, new legislation proposals and calls by some lawmakers to break up Live Nation under federal antitrust laws.
Experts like Delfino are hopeful that such influence on the national discourse — call it the Taylor effect, maybe — could spark a similar conversation over the problem of deepfake pornography. And they might have reason for optimism: Polling conducted by the AI thinktank Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute over the weekend showed that more than 80% of voters supported legislation making non-consensual deepfake porn illegal, and that 84% of them said the Swift incident had increased their concerns about AI.
“Her status as a worldwide celebrity shed a huge spotlight on the need for both criminal and civil remedies to address this problem, which today has victimized hundreds of thousands of others, primarily women,” Delfino said.
But even after last week’s debacle, new laws targeting deepfakes are no guarantee. Some civil liberties activists and lawmakers worry that such legislation could violate the First Amendment by imposing overly-broad restrictions on free speech, including criminalizing innocent images and empowering money-making troll lawsuits. Any new law would eventually need to pass muster at the U.S. Supreme Court, which has signaled in recent years that it is highly skeptical of efforts to restrict speech.
In the absence of writing new laws that make deepfake porn even more illegal, concrete solutions will likely require stronger action by social media platforms themselves, which have created vast, lucrative networks for the spread of such materials and are in the best position to police them.
But Jacob Noti-Victor, a professor at Cardozo School of Law who researches how the law impacts innovation and the deployment of new technologies, says it’s not as simple as it might seem. After all, the images of Swift last week were already clearly in violation of X’s rules, yet they spread widely on the site.
“X and other platforms certainly need to do more to tackle this problem and that requires large, dedicated content moderation teams,” Noti-Victor said. “That said, it’s not an easy task. Content detection tools have not been very good at detecting deepfakes so far, which limits the tools that platforms can use proactively to detect this kind of material as it’s being posted.”
And even if it were easy for platforms find and stop harmful deepfakes, tech companies have hardly been beefing up their content moderation efforts in recent years.
Since Elon Musk acquired X (then named Twitter) in 2022, the company has loosened restrictions on offensive content and fired thousands of employees, including many on the “trust and safety” teams that handle content moderation. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, laid off more than 20,000 employees last year, reportedly also including hundreds of moderators. Google, Microsoft and Amazon have all reportedly made similar cuts.
Amid a broader wave of tech layoffs, why were those employees some of the first to go? Because at the end of the day, there’s no real legal requirement for platforms to police offensive content. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a much-debated provision of federal law, largely shields internet platforms from legal liability for materials posted by their users. That means Taylor could try to sue the anonymous X users who posted her image, but she would have a much harder time suing X itself for failing to stop them.
In the absence of regulation and legal liability, the only real incentives for platforms to do a better job at combating deepfakes are “market incentives,” said Hartzog, the BU professor — meaning, fear of negative publicity that scares away advertisers or alienates users.
On that front, maybe the Taylor fiasco is already having an impact. On Friday, X announced that it would build a “Trust and Safety center of excellence” in Austin, Texas, including hiring 100 new employees to handle content moderation.
“These platforms have an incentive to attract as many people as possible and suck out as much data as possible, with no obligation to create meaningful tools to help victims,” Hartzog said. “Hopefully, this Taylor Swift incident advances the conversation in productive ways that results in meaningful changes to better protect victims of this kind of behavior.”
LONDON — Record labels, publishers and streaming services in the United Kingdom have signed up to a voluntary code of good practice that requires them to provide clear and transparent information to artists and creators about how their streaming royalties are calculated.
“The UK Code of Good Practice on Transparency in Music Streaming” was published Wednesday (Jan. 31) by the U.K. government’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO).
It obliges key players in the British music industry to supply musicians, songwriters, composers and producers with “timely, accurate and clear royalty accounting information,” as well as detail any deductions that have been applied.
Signatories include representatives of major and independent record labels, publishers, creators, collecting societies and streaming services.
Trade bodes BPI — which represents more than 500 labels, including the U.K. arms of Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group — and the Association of Independent Music (AIM), which acts on behalf of U.K. independent record labels and music companies, are among the music groups backing the pledge.
The U.K. government says the agreement forms a “significant point” in improving transparency around licensing deals and music streaming royalties that will build greater trust between record labels, streaming services and creators.
“This pioneering code, designed by the music industry with Government backing, has trust at its core,” said Viscount Camrose, minister for AI and Intellectual Property, in a statement.
The cross-industry pact, said Camrose, will “help ensure artists get the royalties and protections they deserve when their music is played on streaming platforms.”
Wednesday’s transparency agreement is the latest in an ongoing series of government-led interventions into the U.K. music industry fuelled by artist discontent over low payments from streaming.
In 2021, a Parliamentary inquiry into the music streaming business called into question the major record labels’ dominance of the industry and branded the global streaming model as unsustainable in its current form, saying it “needs a complete reset.”
Numerous government-led working groups, investigations and initiatives spun out of the eight-month-long Parliamentary probe, including last year’s industry-wide pledge – also made at the behest and overseen by the IPO – to improve the digital metadata for song recordings.
The new transparency agreement further increases the obligations on rights holders and digital services to address long-standing issues in music streaming, but it does not constitute a regulatory change and it is not clear what, if any, repercussions a record label or DSP would face for breaching its terms.
Rather, the voluntary code is intended as a stimulus for music companies to lift standards and deliver more accurate returns to artists by following a number of agreed principles.
They include labels, publishers and managers making it clear to artists the terms of their contracts, licence deals and remuneration terms, including any recoupable costs.
Streaming services are required to provide to all relevant rights holders accurate and timely usage data. The code also states that artists and creators should have a contractual right to audit financial information, including royalty payments, from labels, publishers, distributors, collecting societies and, in the case of self-releasing artists, streaming services that they hold contracts with.
Other music groups backing the transparency code include the Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA), whose members include streaming services; the Music Publishers Association (MPA); Musicians’ Union (MU); Featured Artists Coalition (The FAC); Music Managers Forum (MMF); Music Producers Guild (MPG) and U.K. collecting societies PRS for Music and Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL).
The code will come into force on July 31 with the IPO set to carry out a first review of its implementation early next year.
In the meantime, several other government initiatives looking into the digital music business will continue to operate in the background, including a new working group –made up of industry stakeholders — looking into artist remuneration from music streaming.
Details on membership of the remuneration working group, which was first announced last May, will be published shortly, said the government. A report into equitable remuneration commissioned by the IPO is due to be published in the coming months
Commenting on the new transparency requirements, BPI chief executive Jo Twist said the “landmark agreement… builds meaningfully on the recent progress around metadata and other significant measures addressing creator concerns around music streaming.”
U.K. trade group The Council Of Music Makers said that while the commitments contained in the code “are modest, it provides a framework that can be used to start tackling the “systemic lack of transparency” in music streaming. The organization said it will be launching a complaints mechanism when the code comes into force for artists and their managers to report non-compliance with its terms.
“The big music and streaming companies need to stop using ‘artist-centric’ as a hollow buzzword and actually put artists and other music-makers at the centre of their businesses,” said a Council Of Music Makers spokesperson.
The Conga Room — the nightclub that for years defined Latin entertainment in Los Angeles and featured artists like Celia Cruz, Carlos Santana, Fito Páez and Alejandro Sanz — is closing its doors after 25 years. Its final concert will be a private show March 27 featuring Puerto Rican salsa star Gilberto Santa Rosa and an array of friends, hosted by actor and producer Jimmy Smits and MC’d by comedian Paul Rodriguez, both co-owners.
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Established in 1999 by entrepreneur Brad Gluckstein, the Conga was — and still is — an anomaly in Los Angeles: an upscale, celebrity-studded nightclub devoted to Latin music and entertainment. Gluckstein’s co-owners at opening were luminaries Smits, Rodriguez, Jennifer Lopez and Sheila E., all representing different sides of entertainment. In contrast with New York, which for decades boasted legendary nightclubs devoted to Latin music, Los Angeles didn’t have a Latin venue backed by star power and that sought to highlight a broad swath of Latin music.
Maluma performing at the Conga Room in 2016
The Conga Room
From the onset, the Conga did just that.
When it opened in its original Wilshire Boulevard location, it featured Celia Cruz as its first headliner, and artists who performed there included Buena Vista Social Club and Tito Puente, but also Carlos Santana and Alejandro Fernández. In 2008, the Conga Room moved to its current, ritzier location at L.A. LIVE, where it continued to expand its programming, bringing in reggaetón and Mexican acts; Maluma and Bad Bunny, for example, played there in the early days.
In 2013, Billboard hosted a show by norteño band Calibre 50, as part of its Mexican Music Awards. While the room also featured other genres, with shows by artists like Lenny Kravitz, Ed Sheeran and Avicii, its core remained Latin music. All told, the venue hosted more than 500 performances in both locations, in addition to special events.
Gilberto Santa Rosa performing at the Conga Room in 2021
The Conga Room
“The Conga Room brought Latin music to the forefront, presenting both international and local artists in an intimate and upscale setting,” said Gluckstein in a statement. “It also became part of the cultural fabric of Los Angeles, hosting cultural, political and community events for a quarter of a century.”
However, offered Gluckstein, “Unfortunately, with the pandemic, the lack of events at the convention center, and the difficulty in booking national acts with AEG and Live Nation controlling national routing, our business model was changed. Coupled with an inflammatory economy and high interest rates, [it changed] consumer behavior significantly.”
Although the venue is shuttering, the nonprofit organization Conga Kids will continue to operate. Founded in 2016, the program reaches roughly 50,000 elementary school children per year in largely under-resourced communities in LA County, offering a curriculum of dance and music of the Afro-Diaspora.
After more than 1,500 votes cast over three rounds of voting, Billboard Pro members selected Universal Music Publishing Group chairman/CEO Jody Gerson for the 2024 Power Players’ Choice Award, which honors the executive they believe had the most impact across the business in the past year. Since Gerson joined UMPG in 2015, the company’s annual […]
Taylor Swift continues to rewrite the rules, coming in at No. 1 on Billboard’s Power 100 list. Not only is this the first time that she’s topped the list, but it’s the just the second time any artist has crowned Billboard’s annual ranking of the most impactful music industry executives and power players (Jay-Z and […]
A federal judge says prosecutors cannot cite rap lyrics written by Jam Master Jay’s alleged killer during his murder trial, warning that “music artists should be free to create without fear that their lyrics could be unfairly used against them.”
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In a decision issued Tuesday, Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall ruled that the lyrics prosecutors wanted to use against Karl Jordan Jr. – one about shooting a man in the head, another alluding to drugs – were not directly connected to the Run DMC star’s 2002 murder, so they couldn’t be presented to the jury.
The ruling came amid a broader debate over the use of rap lyrics in criminal trials, a controversial practice that has drawn backlash from the music industry and efforts by lawmakers to stop it. A gang trial in Atlanta, in which prosecutors are using Young Thug’s lyrics against him, has drawn particular scrutiny.
In that case, the judge allowed the lyrics to be used, as have most judges confronted with the issue. But on Tuesday, Judge Hall not only barred them from being cited in Jordan’s case, but offered a detailed analysis of the practice and the risks that come with it.
“Courts should be wary of overly permissive rules allowing the use of rap lyrics and videos against criminal defendants at trial,” the judge wrote. “Music artists should be free to create without fear that their lyrics could be unfairly used against them at a trial.”
In a remarkable 14-page opinion, the judge offered a sweeping historical overview of hip hop’s past. She took readers from the genesis of hip hop in the Bronx to the present day, name-dropping Grand Master Flash, Public Enemy, Queen Latifah, Dr. Dre, Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, Nas, Future and Ice Spice along the way.
Because rappers have “played the part of storytellers, providing a lens into their lives and those in their communities,” the judge wrote, their music has often depicted “criminal conduct” and other real-life issues – something that has attracted scrutiny “not only from the public, but also from law enforcement.”
“As a result, the admissibility of rap lyrics has become the subject of dispute in courtrooms across the country,” Judge Hall wrote.
In Jordan’s case, prosecutors wanted to play a lyric in which he rapped “We aim for the head, no body shots, and we stick around just to see the body drop.” Since Jay was shot in the head, the government argued that the lyric “speaks directly to the issues in the case.”
But Judge Hall disagreed. Citing lyrics by Nas (“two in the dome, he’s laid down”) and Ice Cube (“two shots hit him in the face when they blasted”), the judge ruled that lines Jordan wrote “merely contain generic references to violence that can be found in many rap songs.”
She applied the same analysis to another lyric cited by prosecutors, in which Jordan rapped about “breaking down bricks” – an line that the government argued was an allusion to the drug charges he’s also facing. But again, Judge Hall cited other songs in which rappers say the same thing, like Migos’ 2021 track “Modern Day.”
“The members of Migos, however, do not stand accused of drug trafficking in this or any other case,” the judge wrote. “Jordan’s lyrics are simply too imprecise.”
The big problem, the judge wrote, is that rappers not only have a right to tell stories about violence and crime, but are also “increasingly incentivized to create music about drugs and violence to gain commercial success.” She warned that many “will exaggerate or fabricate the contents of their music in pursuit of that success.”
In all cases involving lyrics, Judge Hall said the core question should be whether the music has a “nexus to the criminal conduct” – meaning, a direct, literal connection to alleged crime. If prosecutors can’t show that, then lyrics should be avoided.
“Juries should not be placed in the unenviable position of divining a defendant’s guilt, in whole or in part, from a musical exposition with only a tenuous relationship to the criminal conduct alleged,” the judge wrote.
Judge Hall was careful to say that she was not banning all lyrics from cases. As a hypothetical, she referenced Kendrick Lamar’s 2012 track “The Art of Peer Pressure,” in which he raps about ripping off a house while “The sun is goin’ down” and “somebody in this room.”
“If the government wished to admit these lyrics into evidence at a subsequent trial accusing Lamar of burglarizing an occupied residence with his friends at sunset, there would be a more than sufficient basis to do so,” the judge wrote. “Individuals who choose to confess unmistakable details of their crimes should be held to those statements, to be sure.”
But Judge Hall said that was not the case with Jordan’s lyrics – nor with huge numbers of other rap songs that feature references to dark subjects.
“Themes of violence and criminality have become so prevalent within the genre that they have little, if any, probative value at trial,” the judge wrote. “It is critical that resolution of guilt and innocence emerge from evidence with a close relationship to a specific criminal act, and not be based on perceptions born from the commercial and artistic promotion of a criminal lifestyle.”
The trial over Jam Master Jay’s 2002 killing, in which Jordan and Ronald Washington stand accused of murdering the Run DMC star as payback for a failed drug deal, kicked off Monday. The proceedings are expected to run for several more weeks.
Read the entire decision here:
More than three decades into their career, the Wiggles continue to evolve and make history with No. 1 records, awards, arenas shows and more. Now, the beloved kids entertainers set another new mark, with the appointment of Luke O’Neill to the newly-created position of chief executive officer.
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The incoming CEO will be expected to lead the organization’s digital transformation and global expansion.
Among his tasks, O’Neill will be expected to expand the Wiggles’ digital footprint, develop new products, grow the commercial operations of the business, and build greater distribution channels to reach larger audiences.
“The Wiggles have always been pioneers in delivering high-quality, educational, and entertaining content for children,” O’Neill comments. “I am thrilled to lead the team as we explore new opportunities in the digital and commercial spaces and expand our global presence. Together, we will continue to create memorable experiences for children and families around the world.”
The incoming chief carries experience in accelerating growth and leading digital transformations for businesses in real estate, hospitality, and events industries, and has served as a consultant with the Wiggles since mid-2023.
O’Neill has already played “a crucial role in shaping the strategic direction for the brand’s future,” reads a statement announcing his appointment, by “leading the development of a new digital strategy, while refocusing efforts in consumer product licensing and sponsorship opportunities.”
The Wiggles and their big red car aren’t slowing down. The group celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2021, then found a new gear. Along the way, the group won triple j’s Hottest 100 countdown for the first time (with a cover of Tame Impala’s “Elephant”); landed a No. 1 album on the ARIA Chart (also a first), became the first band in Australian history to perform two national arena tours in a single year; and scooped the Ted Albert Award for outstanding service to Australian music (a first for a kid’s entertainment act). Last year, the Wiggles teamed up with the Pinkfong Company for a four-part Baby Shark collaborative series.
Since 1991, the Wiggles have sold over 30 million albums and DVDs and 8 million books globally.
In Warner Music Group‘s sprawling 2023 ESG report, released Tuesday (Jan. 30), the label outlined plans and goals for its workforce, artists and environmental impact.
“We are determined to transform our business and spur industry change to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis,” the report states in an expansive section on sustainability practices. “This includes measuring and understanding WMG’s environmental footprint, setting science-based targets to reduce emissions…and leveraging our scale, experience and partnerships to foster cross-industry cooperation to minimize the environmental impacts of making and distributing music.”
For the company, these changes start with the company’s brick-and-mortar spaces, with the goal that “WMG will source 100% renewable energy for our operations” by 2030.
The plan is to first implement this initiative in WMG’s global offices and workspaces before rolling it out to WMG-owned and operated facilities. The company also plans to decarbonize its workplaces through 100% renewable energy-based power by 2030.
The report cites WMG joining with Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group in 2023 to establish the Music Industry Climate Collective. The first initiative of this working group has been supporting the development and implementation of sector-specific guidelines for calculating Scope 3 GHG emissions within the recorded music industry. “Scope 3” refers to indirect emissions that occur in the value chain, such as those from product manufacturing, distribution and licensing.
The company also noted a previously announced partnership with MIT, Live Nation, Coldplay and Hope Solutions to understand and mitigate the environmental impact of the live events.
The company cites a goal of increasing public transportation utilization by 20% at Warner Music live events. This effort has already resulted in a partnership between Warner Music Finland Live and Helsinki City Public Transportation, which has provided fans with free public transportation included in their concert tickets.
With its environmental impact data independently reviewed and assured by a third-party auditor for the first time in 2023, WMG reports that in the past year, it has made “significant strides” in its Scope 1 and 2 data collection, analysis and methodology. (Scope 1 and 2 refers to emissions that are owned or controlled by the company and indirect emissions that result from activities of the company.)
“Despite our return to office,” the report says, its efforts “have led to an overall decrease in our reported Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions for 2023.”
The report also cites successful employee-driven initiatives, including its U.K. Wrights Lane office eliminating single-use plastic and switching to reusable cutlery and serveware. The WMG office in France has eliminated paper cups and improved waste management to increase recycling.
Regarding sustainable products and merchandise, the company outlines “an industry-first method” of creating vinyl albums using PVC alternatives. Says the report: “We are delivering these changes in partnership with our artists and songwriters, many of whom are increasingly looking for ways to share music with their fans in a sustainable way.”
Read the full report here.
Universal Music Group (UMG) says it will pull its entire music catalog from TikTok when its contract with the service expires on Wednesday (Jan. 31), accusing the platform of “trying to build a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music,” according to an open letter released Tuesday (Jan. 30).
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In the letter, addressed to UMG artists and songwriters, the company states that it’s particularly concerned about the rates that TikTok is offering to pay for its catalog. Other points of contention include the amount of content on TikTok that infringes its artists’ and songwriters’ works without providing “meaningful solutions” to help them combat it, the level of hate and harassment on the platform and TikTok’s stances on artificial intelligence (AI).
According to UMG, during the negotiations, the ByteDance-owned social giant “demanded a contractual right which would allow [AI] content to massively dilute the royalty pool for human artists,” which UMG states is “nothing short of sponsoring artist replacement by AI.”
If UMG pulls its catalog, it would affect all music distributed and administered by its recorded-music division as well as Universal Music Publishing Group.
The last deal UMG struck with TikTok to license both its recorded music and publishing was announced on Feb. 8, 2021. In July, WMG inked a multi-year licensing deal with TikTok that allows the company to use WMG’s music on its app as well as CapCut and its new “social streaming platform” TikTok Music, which is currently available in Brazil, Indonesia, Australia, Singapore, and Mexico. At the time the deal was announced, WMG CEO/chairman Robert Kyncl and TikTok’s chief executive Shou Chew said the agreement would benefit artists.
This is not the first time the music business has had issues with TikTok. In 2019, when the platform was just getting started, the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) called on Congress to investigate TikTok for potential copyright theft. It was also reported around that time that TikTok was operating on expired deal extensions that were grandfathered in from when it acquired Musical.ly in late 2017. In March 2020, Billboard reported that all three majors had struck short-term licensing deals with TikTok.
Read the full open letter below.
Our core mission is simple: to help our artists and songwriters attain their greatest creative and commercial potential. To achieve these goals, our teams employ their expertise and passion to strike deals with partners all around the world, partners who take seriously their responsibilities to fairly compensate our artists and songwriters and treat the user experience with respect
One of those partners is TikTok, an increasingly influential platform with powerful technology and a massive worldwide user base. As with many other platforms with whom we partner, TikTok’s success as one of the world’s largest social platforms has been built in large part on the music created by our artists and songwriters. Its senior executives proudly state publicly that “music is at the heart of the TikTok experience” and our analysis confirms that the majority of content on TikTok contains music, more than any other major social platform.
The terms of our relationship with TikTok are set by contract, which expires January 31, 2024. In our contract renewal discussions, we have been pressing them on three critical issues—appropriate compensation for our artists and songwriters, protecting human artists from the harmful effects of AI, and online safety for TikTok’s users.
We have been working to address these and related issues with our other platform partners. For example, our Artist-Centric initiative is designed to update streaming’s remuneration model and better reward artists for the value they deliver to platforms. In the months since its inception, we’re proud that this initiative has been received so positively and taken up by a range of partners, including the largest music platform in the world. We’ve also moved aggressively to embrace the promise of AI while fighting to ensure artists’ rights and interests are protected now and far into the future. In addition, we’ve engaged a number of our platform partners to try to drive positive change for their users and by extension, our artists, by addressing online safety issues, and we are recognized as the industry leader in focusing on music’s broader impact on health and wellness.
With respect to the issue of artist and songwriter compensation, TikTok proposed paying our artists and songwriters at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay. Today, as an indication of how little TikTok compensates artists and songwriters, despite its massive and growing user base, rapidly rising advertising revenue and increasing reliance on music-based content, TikTok accounts for only about 1% of our total revenue.
Ultimately TikTok is trying to build a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music.
On AI, TikTok is allowing the platform to be flooded with AI-generated recordings—as well as developing tools to enable, promote and encourage AI music creation on the platform itself – and then demanding a contractual right which would allow this content to massively dilute the royalty pool for human artists, in a move that is nothing short of sponsoring artist replacement by AI.
Further, TikTok makes little effort to deal with the vast amounts of content on its platform that infringe our artists’ music and it has offered no meaningful solutions to the rising tide of content adjacency issues, let alone the tidal wave of hate speech, bigotry, bullying and harassment on the platform. The only means available to seek the removal of infringing or problematic content (such as pornographic deepfakes of artists) is through the monumentally cumbersome and inefficient process which equates to the digital equivalent of “Whack-a-Mole.”
But when we proposed that TikTok takes similar steps as our other platform partners to try to address these issues, it responded first with indifference, and then with intimidation.
As our negotiations continued, TikTok attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth. How did it try to intimidate us? By selectively removing the music of certain of our developing artists, while keeping on the platform our audience-driving global stars.
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.
We will never do that.
We will always fight for our artists and songwriters and stand up for the creative and commercial value of music.
We recognize the challenges that TikTok’s actions will cause, and do not underestimate what this will mean to our artists and their fans who, unfortunately, will be among those subjected to the near-term consequences of TikTok’s unwillingness to strike anything close to a market-rate deal and meaningfully address its obligations as a social platform. But we have an overriding responsibility to our artists to fight for a new agreement under which they are appropriately compensated for their work, on a platform that respects human creativity, in an environment that is safe for all, and effectively moderated.
We honor our responsibilities with the utmost seriousness. Intimidation and threats will never cause us to shirk those responsibilities.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) welcomed the latest edition of the United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) Notorious Markets Report on Tuesday (Jan. 30), which provides an annual run-down of various forms of copyright infringement, including digital music piracy.
Digital music piracy is not front-of-mind for many listeners in the age of streaming; even the industry itself has focused more of its recent frustration on streaming fraud and the popularity of rain sounds, at least in public comments made in the last year.
However, global music piracy inched up in 2022, according to a March 2023 report from MUSO, a U.K. technology company, which tracked over 15 billion visits to music piracy sites that year.
The USTR’s new report highlighted a handful of sites — including 1337X, Krakenfiles, Rapidgator and Ssyoutube — where people go to stream or download songs illegally. “Ssyoutube is reportedly the most popular YouTube ripping site globally, with over 343 million visitors just in April 2023,” the USTR noted in one example.
“We appreciate the report’s prioritization of thefts that target the music community such as stream-ripping,” said George York, the RIAA’s senior vp of international policy, in a statement.
Overall, music is less of a concern in this year’s USTR report relative to 2023’s. The document’s primary focus is the “potential health and safety risks posed by counterfeit trademark goods.”
The USTR was heartened by the fact that “this year many e-commerce and social commerce platforms took solid steps toward initiating additional anti-counterfeiting practices and adapting to new circumvention techniques used by counterfeiters.”
“Several platforms filed public submissions outlining their implementation of new anti-counterfeiting tools, including releasing educational campaigns, increasing identity verification requirements, and implementing faster and more transparent notice-and-takedown processes,” the report continued. “Additionally, several platforms have invested in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies as a way to scale up and quickly adapt traditional anti-counterfeiting measures such as text and image screening.”
The RIAA had asked the USTR to highlight another aspect of AI, according to comments submitted in October, though it was not ultimately included in the report.
At the time, the RIAA noted that “the year 2023 saw an eruption of unauthorized AI vocal clone services that infringe not only the rights of the artists whose voices are being cloned but also the rights of those that own the sound recordings in each underlying musical track. This has led to an explosion of unauthorized derivative works of our members’ sound recordings which harm sound recording artists and copyright owners.”
In a statement following the USTR’s latest release, York “urge[d] the organization to take “a close look in the future at emerging piracy challenges presented by AI, including the widespread illegal use of copyrighted sound recordings and artist names, images, and likenesses to generate invasive and unlawful voice clones and deepfakes.”