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Megan Thee Stallion pulled up to Adweek’s Social Media Week in New York City on Wednesday (April 10), where she revealed her favorite social media app at the moment — and it’s probably not the go-to for most people in their late 20s like Meg.
The Houston Hottie tapped into her Millennial spirit and crowned Pinterest as her favorite app with an appreciation for curating her own visual mood board.
“You know what I really like, Pinterest. I’m not gonna tell anybody what my Pinterest is. I got a lot of stuff saved, OK! I deleted Instagram and Twitter off my phone, but I have TikTok and I got Pinterest. Pinterest is like the best app, in my opinion, right now because I can curate what I want to see,” she explained.
“I can get on there and see what I want to see. Like if I want to see puppies all day, that’s what I see,” she added. “Makeup, puppies, breakfast, workout videos, booty shorts. I see all the content I like to see.”
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Pinterest’s Instagram account hopped into the comment section to co-sign Meg’s message: “We’re hotties for life!”
Per Statista, Pinterest has more than 97 million active users in the United States, and that figure is expected to continue to grow over the next few years thanks to a bump in engagement with Generation Z.
Megan Thee Stallion’s admission regarding deleting Instagram and X from her phone could be tied to the backlash she received throughout the Tory Lanez shooting case.
“A lot of people didn’t treat me like I was human for a long time,” she told Women’s Health earlier this week. “I feel like everybody was always used to me being the fun and happy party girl. I watched people build me up, tear me down, and be confused about their expectations of me. As a Black woman, as a darker Black woman, I also feel like people expect me to take the punches, take the beating, take the lashings and handle it with grace. But I’m human.”
Megan credited therapy and working out for jumpstarting her healing process. “Before I went onstage, I would be crying half the time because I didn’t want to [perform], but I also didn’t want to upset my fans,” she admitted. “I didn’t want to get [out] from under the covers. I stayed in my room. I would not turn the lights on. I had blackout curtains. I didn’t want to see the sun. I knew I wasn’t myself. It took me a while to acknowledge that I was depressed. But once I started talking to a therapist, I was able to be truthful with myself.”
Lanez was ultimately sentenced to 10 years in prison on three felony counts over the incident last August, in which he shot Meg in the feet following an argument outside a pool party in the Hollywood Hills in July 2020.
Watch Megan reveal her favorite social media app below.
Much of Taylor Swift‘s discography is back on TikTok on Thursday (April 11), returning a little over a week before the anticipated release of her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, due out April 19.
Official audio for hits like “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version),” “Cruel Summer” and “Style (Taylor’s Version)” are among the songs now available for users to make videos with on the short-form app. It appears that there are no official audio for Swift’s songs released before her album Lover, meaning the original recordings from Fearless, Speak Now and Red — recorded for the Big Machine record label — are not available, though her recent re-recordings of those albums are.
Swift’s catalog was pulled from TikTok at the start of February after the parent company for her record label and publisher, Universal Music Group, announced that it was letting its licensing agreement with TikTok lapse, citing that the app was not willing to pay for the “fair value” of music, as well as other concerns like AI and artist safety. That affected songs by many of music’s biggest stars, including Swift, Drake, SZA, Olivia Rodrigo and more, who all have recording and/or publishing contracts with the company.
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For Swift, the ownership of her Big Machine catalog has been the subject of much conversation in recent years. Her first six albums — covering her self-titled debut in 2006 through 2017’s Reputation — were sold to Scooter Braun in 2019 after the manager and entrepreneur’s Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine in a deal worth more than $300 million.
That sparked a backlash from Swift, who vowed to re-record each of those albums in order to re-release them and own the recordings herself; she has since released “Taylor’s Version” re-recordings of Fearless, Red, Speak Now and 1989. In 2018, Swift signed a deal with UMG to license her future recordings to Republic Records, and has since released four additional albums through that deal, the copyrights to which she also owns. While it’s unclear why her recordings are back on TikTok, it’s notable that the tracks that she owns are the ones that are available.
In a letter to its artists on Jan. 30 explaining the licensing spat, UMG wrote, “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.”
TikTok fired back at UMG’s announcement hours later, saying, “It is sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group has put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters.”
In addition to her label deal with Republic Records, Swift has been signed to Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) as a songwriter since 2020; previously, she was signed to Sony Music Publishing as a songwriter. Her frequent collaborator, Jack Antonoff, was also signed to Sony Music Publishing until he switched to UMPG in August 2023.
Reps for TikTok, Universal and UMPG did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
When Ariana Grande released her latest album eternal sunshine, one of its most beloved tracks, “the boy is mine,” became an instant dance trend on TikTok. At any other moment, a viral trend around a major pop star’s new song would seem obvious, even normal. But amidst the licensing feud between TikTok and Grande’s record label Universal Music Group, it’s a surprise to find the song on TikTok at all.
Grande’s music is not alone in sticking around on the app far past the expiration of UMG’s last license, which lapsed at the end of January. Thanks to clever tactics by fans, artists and their teams, some notable UMG-affiliated songs have been able to effectively skirt the company’s TikTok boycott. While it helps promote these songs individually, trying to get around the ban also has a knock-on effect for songwriters — and supplies UMG hits to TikTok without the app paying a cent.
An Olivia Rodrigo fan under the username LouLiv recently uploaded Rodrigo’s new single “so american” to TikTok as an “original sound,” and Rodrigo herself used the sound in a few recent TikToks, helping boost the song’s visibility. Grande’s fans have also been creating various versions of “the boy is mine” on TikTok, which has helped spread the song on the app, as well as other tracks from eternal sunshine.
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These original sounds often manipulate the official recording, changing the speed, pitch and/or title of the song to help them slip past TikTok’s detection technology, which is used to automatically catch songs, like UMG’s, that are not licensed to be on the app. A source close to the matter says that TikTok’s detection technology combs for metadata provided by UMG and UMPG and then removes the content. But the remaining original sounds that don’t get automatically wiped from TikTok are so widespread that it can sometimes feel like UMG never left the app at all.
The songs are not hard to find, either. The most popular sound for Rodrigo’s “so american,” for example, is straightforwardly titled “so american” and already has 33,400 videos created with the song to date. The most-used original audio for “the boy is mine” was recently removed after weeks on TikTok, a sign that UMG is issuing takedowns for some original sounds using their catalog. But multiple other original audios for the song remain, including “the boy is mine” by star and “the boy is mine sped up” by satvrn, amounting to over 100,000 videos made to original sounds of the song on TikTok and counting.
For songwriters, there are negative consequences. In two separate text and email chains reviewed by Billboard, non-UMG recording artists that 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 skirt the UMG TikTok ban — and the songwriters have agreed.
Though the two sources who provided correspondence to Billboard wished to remain anonymous to protect their clients, Lucas Keller, founder/CEO of Milk & Honey and manager to a number of songwriters and producers, confirmed that this is happening to songwriters. “Sometimes there’s a song coming out and there’s four writers, and one of them is UMPG, and someone steps forward and says, ‘Hey, can you not get in the way of this one? Can we register this in like three months?’” Keller says. “Then the song can be used on TikTok. It’s an interesting dark corner of the business that’s emerged.”
It is common for tracks to be released without submitting the proper publishing “splits,” meaning the names of the writers and what the percentage of ownership each holds, given these negotiations can be lengthy and sometimes contentious. But in the cases Keller and the other two sources discussed with Billboard, the songs’ publishing splits were ready to go and could have been submitted on 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 asks by artists put songwriters in a bad position. “Songwriters are the least equipped to negotiate, the lowest on the food chain in these discussions,” Lewis says. She worries songwriters don’t feel like they have the ability to push back on these asks if they want to. Meanwhile, leaving out this key information could threaten the songwriters’ ability to get paid royalties from streaming services on time if the parties hold out longer than a few months.
Lewis, Keller and three artist managers who wished to remain anonymous, all tell Billboard that some artists are also “thinking twice” about inviting UMPG writers to sessions. “I have also heard about Universal writers not being invited to camps,” Lewis says; while it’s unclear how often this is occurring, Keller says it “is absolutely happening.” Adds Lewis, “It’s so uncool. If you’re not including Universal writers, you’re basically crossing the picket line. You’re weakening [UMG’s position].”
A UMPG spokesperson declined to comment on its songwriters facing these specific effects from the TikTok feud, but pointed to its letter to songwriters on Feb. 29, which read in part, “We understand 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, like “Texas Hold Em” by Beyonce, who is affiliated with Sony’s Columbia Records, still remain on TikTok for unknown reasons. That song, which is currently ranked at No. 5 on Billboard’s TikTok Viral 50, was co-written by UMPG’s Raphael Saadiq, as were other songs on Beyonce’s new album Cowboy Carter that remain on the platform.
“Texas Hold Em” and some other tracks by Beyonce have a large number of songwriters — which is one major reason why publishing information is often submitted late — so it is possible that TikTok hasn’t removed the track because it doesn’t have verification that it is in any way affiliated with UMPG. Strangely, however, this track was taken down from TikTok briefly and then reappeared days later. When asked why “Texas Hold Em” was available on TikTok despite its clear ties to UMPG, neither TikTok nor UMPG responded to Billboard’s requests for comment.
Regardless of how these songs avoided an automatic removal from TikTok, UMG could have requested that these popular tracks and original sounds be taken down by now. Rights holders are able to manually request takedowns of content on TikTok that they believe infringe on their copyrights, like the original sounds for Grande and Rodrigo and songs like “Texas Hold Em,” and TikTok is required to remove them to remain in compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
But tracking down all infringing content and requesting takedowns, especially for a catalog of millions like UMG’s, is known to be a tedious task. As UMG put it in its original letter to artists and songwriters, it is “monumentally cumbersome” and “the digital equivalent of ‘Whack-A-Mole.’” Michael Nash, the company’s executive vp of digital strategy, also added on an earnings call on Feb. 28 that the company had sent requests to “effectuate muting of millions of videos every day.” However, it is possible to get infringing tracks removed if that is the rights holders’ wish.
“This is not a united front,” Lewis says. “It feels indicative of our industry overall. We can never get along, and the individual creator is the one who gets hurt… It’s totally not fair for songwriters, but this is all beneath the top line concern, which is that TikTok completely underpays, undervalues songwriters. That’s number one. They’re the ones who started this.”
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Source: SOPA Images / Getty / Disney+
If you’re one of those people who enjoys Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ content at the expense of a friend or family member without having to pay, start counting your days.
You have until June to get your bank accounts in order and decide whether you want to continue sharing your Disney+ and its family streaming platform account with your homie or other family members.
Those allowing other people to use their Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ accounts will see a message telling them to add that person to their plan for an additional fee, of course.
Speaking with CNBC, Disney CEO Bob Iger talked about Disney’s plans to start cracking down on the popular practice of password sharing.
Per Variety:
According to Disney chief Bob Iger, the Mouse House this June will “be launching our first real foray into password sharing” enforcement. Iger, during an interview Thursday on CNBC, said the initial launch will be “just a few countries in a few markets” (he didn’t identify them) then “will grow significantly with a full rollout in September.”
The initial communications to Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ customers will prompt password-borrowers to start their own subscriptions, the company has said previously. Later in 2024, account holders who want allow access to individuals outside their household will be able to add them for an additional fee.
When Disney+ begins its crackdown on password sharing, which it hopes will help achieve “double-digit margins, it will join Netflix, which has already begun doing so.
Netflix claims that its effort to crack down on password sharing has been successful in helping boost subscriber numbers.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Fashion, tech and music come together in a new collaboration between Alo Yoga and Beats featuring a limited-edition pair of Beats […]
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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / X / Elon Musk
It looks like Elon Musk’s X is giving blue checks back to the platform’s most popular users, and they are like, thanks, but no thanks.
Overnight, Elon Musty’s X, formerly Twitter, “gifted” premium subscriptions to some users on X, mainly those who vowed never to pay for the subscription service that gave users the “blue check,” along with access to other premium features.
Musk confirmed in a post on his bootleg platform that this is the case, writing, “Going forward, all 𝕏 accounts with over 2500 verified subscriber followers will get Premium features for free, and accounts with over 5000 will get Premium+ for free.”
Those who have gotten their blue checkmarks back to their names are taking to the platform to let their followers know they are still ten toes down on their initial stance and did not give Bootleg Tony Stark any money to get back their checks.
Acadmey Award-nominated actor Jeffrey Wright was one of those users who expressed that sentiment, sharing a screenshot of a notification from X that he was getting his complimentary subscription to X Premium.
In the caption for the post, he wrote, “Pay $8? Kidding. Help me. But don’t say anything too free speechy about me or my Garbage Tower of Babel shitsite.”
Netflix’s Good Times star also spoke on the matter, writing, “What happened? I didn’t pay for this. I would NEVER pay for this. When did the Blue Check mark start getting passed around again?!
Actor Mark Hamill, aka our guy Luke Skywalker, responded to Brown’s post, “I didn’t pay when it went away, & really didn’t care. Then, out of nowhere, it mysteriously reappeared. #whatever.”
Well, the sentiment remains thanks, but no thanks.
Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA) has released a statement detailing its position on TikTok and the proposed changes to the payment models for music streaming, and how this will affect its members. Founded in 2000, the advocacy group has 6000 members, stemming from Europe’s small music businesses.
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With regards to TikTok, the organization says it is aligned with Universal Music Group and its decision to let its license with TikTok lapse due to low compensation and AI concerns. “IMPALA supports UMG’s stance on TikTok in relation to valuing music properly,” say the organization’s chair of streaming group and CEO of Everlasting Records and Popstock Distribuciones, Mark Kitcatt. “The independent community has adopted a similar approach at various points over the years with other services, from MTV to Apple to YouTube. We also reject arguments equating the use of music on TikTok to promotion.”
IMPALA’s stance on TikTok’s lack of policing for AI generated content is also similar to what UMG addressed in its letter to artists and writers when it announced its plan to leave the platform. “services need permission for the use of music, including soundalikes and AI adaptations. The new AI framework in Europe also helps set human-centred guide rails in this regard,” says Helen Smith, executive director of IMPALA.
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IMPALA also notes that it has concerns with how some streaming services — including Spotify, Deezer and Apple — are changing their payments models to artists and labels. “Adjustments can be made [by Deezer, Spotify and Apple] to avoid harm,” says the organization. IMPALA calls for a better seat at the table for smaller music companies. “Any changes in how revenue is allocated [should] be properly assessed by services in terms of the impact they create over the whole market… We also call on streaming services to consult and discuss this with their independent licensing partners before the decision is made.”
Detractors of Deezer and Spotify’s new royalty payment models say that adding a threshold for a minimum number of streams that an artist has to reach before qualifying for payment is unfair to smaller artists and companies that represent them. Also, streaming companies are considering or are already adding in penalties for music companies that facilitate music involved in streaming manipulation and fraud. For distributors that services a large scale of DIY talent in particular, this could have an outsized impact on their businesses,
To get ahead of these problems, some distributors have joined together to form the Music Fights Fraud coalition, including TuneCore, Distrokid, and CD Baby, to come up with best practices for fighting bad actors that sign up for their platforms and to establish a common database to share information on the fraudsters each service catches. IMPALA says it supports Music Fights Fraud and that addressing maniplation is a “priority” for the organization and its members.
Chair of IMPALA and head of Balkans association RUNDA, Dario Drastata, adds: “IMPALA supports collaborative reform that is sustainable and drives diversity. We seek urgent solutions to address manipulation and revenue dilution. We also need to make sure the proposals are fair to all, and we hope Merlin’s recent agreement with Deezer will contribute to this objective. It’s the only way to create a sustainable ecosystem. We believe for example that there are simple solutions for problems with thresholds that can be plugged in and will continue our constructive discussions with services to explore options. Finding the answers will ensure services are able to further develop opportunities in key markets and genres as well as across multiple languages.”
Helen Smith says, “IMPALA’s work is vital for Europe’s music economy. Independents account for over 80% of the sectors’ new releases and jobs, providing stable and exciting opportunities for artists, fans and music employees across Europe. This was also reconfirmed at IMPALA’s AGM last year, including the elimination of value gaps, and developing the digital market in all territories with great talent, huge audiences and untapped digital potential, such as in Central and Eastern Europe. “
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Source: Renee Dominguez / Getty / Chuck D
Hollywood isn’t the only industry worried about the dangers of AI (artificial intelligence). The music industry is also weary of the technology.
Spotted on Deadline, the Artists Rights Alliance penned an open letter that garnered over 200 signatures from big names in the entertainment and music industry, calling on AI companies and digital streaming platforms to pledge “that undermine or replace the human artistry of songwriters and artists or deny us fair compensation for our work.”
The website reports that Billie Eilish, her brother Finneas, Nicki Minaj, the estates of Bob Marley and Frank Sinatra, Smokey Robinson, Katy Perry, R.E.M, Chuck D, Camila Cabello, J Balvin, and more have signed the letter that lives on Medium.
The letter calls on “AI developers, technology companies, platforms, and digital music services to cease using artificial intelligence (AI) to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists.”
It also points out that AI can be beneficial by adding, “Make no mistake: we believe that, when used responsibly, AI has enormous potential to advance human creativity and in a manner that enables the development and growth of new and exciting experiences for music fans everywhere.
“Unfortunately, some platforms and developers are employing AI to sabotage creativity and undermine artists, songwriters, musicians and rightsholders.”
The letter adds it wants to “protect against the predatory use of AI to steal professional artists’ voices and likenesses, violate creators’ rights, and destroy the music ecosystem.”
AI was a significant issue in the SAG-AFTRA and Writer’s Guild strikes, which lasted for several months before both entities agreed on major sticking points.
In the music industry, AI is used in production and mastering, while independent artists utilize the tool to help with songwriting.
Stability AI has launched Stable Audio 2.0, adding key new functions to the company’s text-to-music generator. Now, users can generate tracks that are up to three minutes long at 44.1 KHz stereo from a natural language prompt like, “A beautiful piano arpeggio grows to a full beautiful orchestral piece” or “Lo-fi funk.” Stable Audio 2.0 […]
Billie Eilish, Pearl Jam, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Elvis Costello, Darius Rucker, Jason Isbell, Luis Fonsi, Miranda Lambert and the estates of Bob Marley and Frank Sinatra are among more than 200 signees to an open letter targeting tech companies, digital service providers and AI developers over irresponsible artificial intelligence practices, calling such work an “assault on human creativity” that “must be stopped.”
The letter, issued by the non-profit Artist Rights Alliance, calls on such organizations to “cease the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists,” stressing that any use of AI be done responsibly. “Make no mistake: we believe that, when used responsibly, AI has enormous potential to advance human creativity and in a manner that enables the development and growth of new and exciting experiences for music fans everywhere. Unfortunately, some platforms and developers are employing AI to sabotage creativity and undermine artists, songwriters, musicians and rights holders.”
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Artists, songwriters and producers from all genres, several generations and multiple continents added their names to the letter, from younger artists like Ayra Starr to legends like Smokey Robinson and organizations like HYBE. In particular, the signatories point to the use of AI models trained on unlicensed music, which they call “efforts directly aimed at replacing the work of human artists with massive quantities of AI-created ‘sounds’ and ‘images’ that substantially dilute the royalty pools that are paid out to artists. For many working musicians, artists and songwriters who are just trying to make ends meet, this would be catastrophic.”
“Working musicians are already struggling to make ends meet in the streaming world, and now they have the added burden of trying to compete with a deluge of AI-generated noise,” Jen Jacobsen, executive director of the Artist Rights Alliance, said in a statement accompanying the letter. “The unethical use of generative AI to replace human artists will devalue the entire music ecosystem — for artists and fans alike.”
Over the past year or so, many in the music industry have echoed similar calls for the ethical and responsible use of artificial intelligence, which left unchecked has the potential to undermine copyright law and make issues like streaming fraud, soundalikes and intellectual property theft much more rampant, much more quickly. There have been Congressional hearings on the matter, and states like Tennessee have begun introducing and passing legislation hoping to protect creators and intellectual property owners from deception and fraud, broadening laws and addressing ethical use. Universal Music Group has developed a task force to address the issue, and UMPG has cited TikTok’s AI approach as one of the reasons for the standoff between the two companies that is ongoing, while the RIAA, Warner Music Group and others have all weighed in stressing that protecting IP from unlicensed AI overreach is of utmost importance.
“We must protect against the predatory use of AI to steal professional artists’ voices and likenesses, violate creators’ rights, and destroy the music ecosystem,” the letter concludes. “We call on all digital music platforms and music-based services to pledge that they will not develop or deploy AI music-generation technology, content, or tools that undermine or replace the human artistry of songwriters and artists or deny us fair compensation for our work.”
Read the full letter and see the list of signatories here.
