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Like many modern artists, Sawyer Hill is constantly scrutinizing the social media platforms that impact music discovery. In January, the 24-year-old singer-songwriter sensed a shift in the digital winds.
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“I used to scroll through TikTok and my whole feed was musicians,” he says. “And then I started noticing all my videos on Instagram were getting distributed at a way greater rate — for the same video, the ratio of likes to views was way higher on Instagram than it was on TikTok.”
This was true despite the fact that Hill was treating Instagram Reels as an afterthought at the time — often just re-posting TikTok clips there, as many artists do. “I wonder what would happen if I really put effort into an Instagram video,” Hill remembers thinking. He started promoting his 2023 single “Look at the Time” – a caustic, grungy rocker delivered in somber baritone – on the platform, and it rose to No. 1 on Spotify’s Viral 50 chart in the U.S. in February.
This sort of breakthrough would be an exciting moment for any musician. Hill’s story has also taken on additional weight at a time when the music industry is casting around for marketing alternatives to the app that’s been ground zero for pop virality for a half-decade now. Some artists are unable to use TikTok to promote their recordings since negotiations between the platform and Universal Music Group fell apart at the end of January.
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Historically, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels have not been able to match TikTok’s impact on streams, so most artists and marketers have not prioritized them to the same degree. (Even with the success of “Look at the Time,” Instagram users’ passion hasn’t led to the type of streaming explosion enjoyed by TikTok favorites like Djo’s “End of Beginning.”) Some optimistic marketers believe that, in a world where TikTok is no longer an option for many acts, artists will finally be able to figure out effective strategies to use elsewhere. It’s like a point guard being forced to tie his right hand behind his back to build strength dribbling with his left.
“Focusing on one or two platforms instead of three could result in better impact,” says Johnny Cloherty, co-founder of digital marketing company Songfluencer.
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This climate helps explain why, after “Look at the Time” began to take off on Reels, “all these people on the industry side were like, ‘this is unbelievable,’” Hill says.
Virality was far from Hill’s mind when he started playing guitar as a kid in Fayetteville, Arkansas, using an instrument abandoned by his brother. By the time he was a freshman in high school, he was good enough to join a band full of seniors. “Whenever they all graduated, they’re like, ‘We’re playing bars now, so you’re either going to do that with us or hit the road,’” Hill recalls.
The choice was easy: He started playing bars around the age of 15. “I was always hanging out with 30- and 40-year-olds at the bar who were telling me their whole life story,” Hill says.
But he eventually realized there was a ceiling on the local circuit. “We’ve been playing all these bars for years, and it hasn’t really gotten us very far,” Hill remembers feeling. “We want to play for the masses. And the only real way we saw to do that was through social media.”
He started with TikTok, since “all music-related things were extremely TikTok-specific at that point.” It didn’t come to him easily. “I started out feeling what a lot of musicians do: ‘These social media platforms are lame, and it seems so fake,’” he says.
But the imperative to reach a wide audience eventually overruled the cringey moments. “There are people making their careers on these platforms,” Hill says. He wanted to be one of them: “I became borderline obsessed with figuring out these platforms.”
His first popular video was popular for the wrong reasons; users were making fun of his singing. Hill remained calm. “One day you can have thousands of people in your inbox telling you that you’re the worst thing in the world, and then the next day you have thousands of people in your inbox telling you that you’re the best in the world,” he says.
His equanimity was rewarded not long after, when he posted a live performance video of “Look at the Time” that was well received on TikTok. (At the time, he had not recorded the song.) After a few more successful videos, Hill caught the attention of AWAL, a label services company acquired by Sony in 2021, where he signed last year. When he turned his attention to Reels earlier in January, he wanted to push “Look at the Time” again because he already knew it was “super reactive.”
Many artists who benefit from a sudden surge of attention on social media and get record deals then have to go and learn how to perform. For Hill, this is not a problem. “I’m so grateful for having spent my teenage years playing all these bars,” he says. “We’re ready to take advantage of the moment and to go on tour.”
His advice to others hoping to crack the code on Instagram promotion boils down to “try hard” and stay flexible. “They’re pushing musicians like crazy on Instagram for now,” Hill says. “But that can change in one software update.”
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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / TikTok
TikTok’s run in the US over? The social media platform is trying its best to remain on smartphones in the States, but the US Government is working really hard to end its stranglehold on social media content creators.
Spotted on The Verge, TikTok is relying on its users to contact their local congress members as a bill calling for the app’s ban gains support in Congress.
The social media platform sent out a push notification warning users about the ban, claiming the government is trying to strip their constitutional rights from them.
Per The Verge:
TikTok sent users in the US a push notification on Wednesday, warning that “Congress is planning a total ban of TikTok” that would “[strip] 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression.”
The page says that a ban would “damage millions of businesses, destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country, and deny artists an audience.” The alert includes a way for users to find their representative and call their office.
The notification comes shortly after the White House expressed support for a bipartisan bill directed at TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.
The bill — called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act — is in response to the perceived national security risks of TikTok, particularly around how the company collects user data.
The bill would require that TikTok break off from ByteDance or risk being removed from app stores in the US.
The Irony
The White House’s support for the bill is ironic due to President Biden’s presence on the platform under the handle @BidenHQ.
Congress has been trying for years to ban the app, with some states successfully banning the app from government devices, and Montana became the first state to ban it successfully.
A judge put a halt on the ban, which is the subject of numerous court challenges. If the government is successful in passing the ban, the American Civil Liberties Union is already pointing out that it will be a violation of the First Amendment.
TikTok has been having a rough year, with UMG (Universal Music Group) pulling music off the platform after both entities did not extend their licensing agreement.
It sounds like TikTok is in danger. There’s always Instagram Reels. Just saying.
The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) warned some of its members on Tuesday that the organizations’ license with TikTok ends April 30 and it “do[es] not anticipate” to renew, extend or form a new license with the platform, according to a letter obtained by Billboard.
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This means that a lot more music could be removed from TikTok come May, spreading the reach of recent music takedowns far beyond what users have already experienced since Universal Music Group began pulling its recorded music and publishing catalogs off the platform in the last month. The NMPA license is used by a number of independent music publishers, but the organization has previously declined to specify which ones.
“Recently, the press has highlighted concerns around TikTok’s licensing practices, concerns that NMPA has heard directly from many of our members,” says the organization in its letter to members.
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If publishers wish to continue to license their works to TikTok, the NMPA’s letter urges publishers using its license to “engage directly with TikTok to negotiate a license beyond April 30.” For those that wish to let the license lapse at the end of April, the NMPA says its attorneys are available to “discuss enforcement options.”
“It is important that all NMPA members understand that without a license in place, TikTok should not be using your musical works on its platform,” the organization wrote.
The NMPA negotiates its TikTok license an optional offering for its membership, allowing them to bypass the strain and cost of negotiating directly with the short-form video app. Though the major music publishers are part of the NMPA’s membership, they do not use the NMPA model license for TikTok and, instead, negotiate their deals directly.
David Israelite, the NMPA’s CEO and president, previously announced that the NMPA license was up for renewal in April, but this is the first time the organization has acknowledged that it will not be pursuing that renewal. “I’m only going to say two things about TikTok,” Israelite said at an Association of Independent Music Publishers’ event in Los Angels on Feb. 1. “The first is I think music is tremendously important to the business model of TikTok, and, secondly, I am just stating the fact that the NMPA model license, which many of you are using, with TikTok expires in April.”
The NMPA is known for its aggressive approach to licensing negotiations with social media sites, streaming services and gaming platforms. On Tuesday, it was announced that a federal judge will allow the NMPA’s multi-million dollar lawsuit against X to go forward, although it tossed some significant elements of the case. The NMPA has also similarly fought back against Twitch, Roblox, and Pandora in recent years.
Read the full letter to NMPA members below:
If you are receiving this Member Alert you are currently participating in a license with TikTok through NMPA’s 2022 model license opt-in.
NMPA is notifying all participants that these two-year licenses are set to expire on April 30, 2024.
Recently, the press has highlighted concerns around TikTok’s licensing practices, concerns that NMPA has heard directly from many of our members.
At this time, we do not anticipate that there will be an option to renew or extend the current NMPA licenses or participate in a new license with TikTok through NMPA.
NMPA members should make their own business determination whether to engage directly with TikTok to negotiate a license beyond April 30, 2024.
It is important that all NMPA members understand that without a license in place, TikTok should not be using your musical works on its platform.
Starting May 1, 2024, any members who are not licensed with TikTok and would like to discuss enforcement options can contact attorneys at NMPA.
If circumstances change prior to the expiration of the current TikTok licenses, NMPA will promptly notify members.
We are here to answer your questions.
At the end of February, TikTok took down every song in which Universal Music Publishing Group owns a share, a complicated step in the escalating showdown between the two companies that started a month earlier during the week before the Grammy Awards.
We are now in uncharted territory: Never before has a major label used the “nuclear option” to withdraw both recorded music and publishing rights from a platform — an especially dramatic step because it includes any song in which UMG owns even a small share. (By Billboard‘s estimates, it affects over 60% of the most popular TikTok songs in the U.S.) What most people don’t know is that these negotiations might perhaps also be affected by a Feb. 9 decision from the Munich Regional Court about the German implementation of the 2019 European Union Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market — the Urheberrechts-Diensteanbieter-Gesetz (UrhDaG). It will certainly shape future negotiations like this.
The case involved the Berlin-based film distributor Nikita Ventures, which operates YouTube channels and, coincidentally, TikTok. And although it wasn’t covered much by English-language press, it shows that negotiating leverage is gradually shifting from platforms to rights holders. “This verdict,” Matthias Lausen, a founding partner of the Lausen law firm, who represented Nikita told me, “shows that there is no safe harbor in Europe anymore for platforms.”
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In the case, Nikita said that it offered to license its content to TikTok in early 2022, at a cost of three euros per thousand views, an amount based on a published rate from GEMA, the German collecting society. (Licensees often seem to pay less than this.) By summer, TikTok had not responded with a counteroffer, and Nikita said that the content it had asked TikTok to block was available until August. TikTok said in court that it was still negotiating, that its filtering system is compliant with the law and that it responded to takedown notices. The court essentially ruled that TikTok didn’t make a best effort to negotiate, though, and held the company liable for infringement, with damages to be determined, plus required it to provide information about how many times the content in question was accessed, as well as its resulting revenue and profit.
Why does this matter? Until now, the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act and laws like it have limited the leverage of rights holders in negotiations. Platforms that make available content uploaded by users have been free to build audiences, and businesses, as long as they have no direct knowledge of infringement and respond promptly to takedown notices filed by copyright holders. This has given platforms what some might call a “Free Ride,” and on a Feb. 28 UMG earnings call chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge said “there must not be free rides for massive global platforms such as TikTok.”
The 2019 European Copyright Directive was intended to address this, and it requires online platforms to make their “best efforts” to license content, as well as block content they haven’t licensed once rights holders have given them the necessary information. But this is the first court decision based on it.
Nothing will change overnight. The scope of this decision is limited, platforms could potentially get around it by better documenting their negotiations with rights holders, and it’s hard to imagine it will have a substantial effect on UMG’s negotiations with TikTok. But it shows that Europe is serious about forcing online platforms to negotiate on an even playing field, which should result in more favorable deals. (Since European countries do not have class-action lawsuits or high statutory damages for copyright infringement, though, this will not lead to a gold rush of litigation.)
Much of that is in the future, and some of these deals will involve platforms that don’t even exist yet. To get a sense of how this might play out, though, imagine a video-based nano-blogging platform that allows schoolchildren to record minute-long covers of pop songs. (I’m making this up, of course, but it’s not the dumbest idea I’ve heard this year.) That platform would have to approach rightsholders about deals early and often, then take serious steps to block the content they ask it to. That means it would have to license content before it got big — not once it’s already too big to fail.
Even now, TikTok needs to make a “best effort” to take down UMG’s publishing catalog. The company took prompt action, so it’s likely to be in the clear there, although it will be interesting to see what happens with recordings that are sped up and slowed down. At a time when songs are sliced and diced by influencers, how elaborate does a best effort have to be? Could we find out in a case that involves this dispute? The odds are against it, but stranger things have happened.
For the past quarter century, rights holders have had a hard time negotiating on an even playing field, which has arguably pushed down the price of content for both online businesses and, through them, for users. That dynamic is changing — slower than rights holders want and faster than platforms prefer — but steadily all the same. It will be hard to measure this, because these big licensing deals by their nature are complicated and intransparent. Finally, though – for good or ill depending on what side you’re
Adele Dazeem is 10 years old!
It’s been a decade since the legendary 2014 moment at the Oscars where John Travolta butchered Idina Menzel’s name before she performed her Frozen hit “Let It Go,” referring to the stage and screen star as “Adele Dazeem.” To celebrate, Menzel took to Instagram to poke fun at the mix-up, and wish her girl Adele the happiest of birthdays.
“Hey, Adele Dazeem! It’s Idina Menzel,” she says in the now-viral clip posted this week. “I just wanted to say happy birthday. Sending you so much love and positive energy.”
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“I hope you have the best, best day,” Menzel added, before hilariously performing a heartfelt rendition of the “Happy Birthday song and signing off.
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After the moment became a meme flooding the Internet in 2014, Travolta issued a statement through is publicist in which he deeply apologized for his mispronunciation. “I’ve been beating myself up all day. Then I thought … what would Idina Menzel say? She’d say, ‘Let it go, let it go!’ Idina is incredibly talented and I am so happy ‘Frozen’ took home two Oscars Sunday night!,” he said at the time.
In 2022, Menzel poked fun at the situation once more, taking part in a TikTok challenge. The challenge, cued to the Ting Tings’ 2008 hit “That’s Not My Name,” finds Menzel cycling through video clips from her most famous movie roles. Opening with a shot of Idina’s face and the words, “My name is Idina… but they call me,” the clip then pivots to quick-cuts of her role as Elphaba in Wicked, Maureen in Rent, Shelby Corcoran (“Rachel’s Mom” in Glee), Nancy in Enchanted, Elsa in Frozen, Vivian in the Camila Cabello Cinderella reboot and Dinah from Adam Sandler’s Uncut Gems. To wrap up, a shot of Travolta from that fateful night with just a series of question marks filling the screen
Watch Mendel’s birthday wishes to Adele Dazeem below.
https://www.tiktok.com/@idinamenzel/video/7341960740435266862
The breakdown in licensing talks between Universal Music Group (UMG) and TikTok affects far more than Universal recording artists and songwriters.
Every now and then, a music company pulls its recorded music catalog, publishing catalog or both from a digital service provider after licensing talks break down — Warner Music Group did this with YouTube in 2008, for example. It happened again starting Feb. 1 when UMG started pulling its recordings from TikTok after the two companies couldn’t come to an agreement on a new licensing deal.
The licensing breakdown first affected artists signed to UMG record labels. Take the Q4 Hot 100, a list of the top 100 tracks in the fourth quarter. UMG’s various record labels — including Republic Records and Interscope Records — released 41 of the 100 tracks, among them Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer,” Doja Cat’s “Paint the Town Red” and Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”
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On Tuesday (Feb. 27), TikTok began removing compositions part-owned by Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG). On the publishing side, UMG has an interest in 40 of the Q4 2023 Hot 100 tracks, such as SZA’s “Snooze” (a track released by Sony’s RCA Records), Jack Harlow’s “Lovin on Me” (a track released by Warner Music Group’s Atlantic Records) and Usher’s “Good Good” (a track released by gamma, an indie newcomer).
Since every recording involves two copyrights — one for the master recording, one for the composition — the damage of UMG’s decision to pull its repertoire from TikTok is larger yet. Counting both recorded music and music publishing, UMG has an ownership interest in 61 of the Q4 2023 Hot 100 tracks. Twenty of those 61 tracks have a UMG publishing interest but were not released by a UMG-owned record label. Another 20 of those tracks have a UMG publishing interest and were released by a UMG record label. UMG does not have a publishing interest in the remaining 21 of those tracks that were released by a UMG record label.
That’s far larger than UMG’s market share in either recorded music or publishing. UMG had a 39.4% share of U.S. recorded music by distribution in 2023 (a 29.4% share by ownership) and a 15.8% publisher’s market share of the Hot 100 in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Ownership interest, not market share, gets to the true impact of the UMG-TikTok impasse. Today’s popular songs have multiple co-writers, each of whom might have a different music publisher. When a track includes a sample or interpolation of another composition, those works’ songwriters get credits on the new work, too. The 41 tracks on the Hot 100 in which UMG has a publishing interest have an average of 5.5 songwriters. Eight of those 41 tracks had 8 or more co-writers; four of them had 10 or more co-writers. Of the 41 tracks with UMG ownership interest, only Irving Berlin’s 83-year-old “White Christmas” was written by one person.
The more songwriters who are on a single track, the higher the odds that any one music publisher can remove a track during a licensing dispute. An example of this complexity is “What It Is (Block Boy)” by Doechii featuring Kodak Black, released by UMG-owned Capitol Records (the track entered the Hot 100 in May thanks to success on TikTok). The recording includes a sample of TLC’s 1999 hit “No Scrubs” and interpolates a hook from “Some Cut” by Lil Scrappy and Trillville, which reached No. 15 on the Hot 100 in 2005. “What It Is (Block Boy)” has 16 co-writers, including the 4 co-writers of “No Scrubs” and 6 co-writers of “Some Cut.”
A wide swatch of the music publishing business is represented in “What It Is (Block Boy).” The Music Licensing Collective’s public database lists 7 different publishers attached to the composition: UMPG, Sony/ATV, Warner Chappell Music, Disney, BMG, Concord and Reservoir Media. UMPG’s 3% collection share is the smallest of the seven publishers.
To be sure, the Hot 100 from the fourth quarter of 2023 isn’t a perfect reflection of what is currently most popular — or would be popular if not for the licensing impasse — at TikTok. The TikTok Billboard 50 shows the platform’s most popular music is a mix of Hot 100 staples (“Lovin On Me”) and indie music that otherwise wouldn’t be seen on a Billboard chart (Aphex Twin’s “QKThr”).
This headline-grabbing development isn’t a story of one music company against one tech company; labels and publishers that renewed their licensing deals with TikTok have unwillingly joined UMG’s battle with the platform. UMG’s inability to reach a deal with TikTok impacts every major label group and likely touches every music publisher of note.
Just days after the Universal Music Group‘s publishing catalog began coming down from TikTok, Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) released a new statement stressing its concerns about artificial intelligence and online safety on the short-form video app. The company stated these are “equally” important issues to TikTok lack of “fair compensation” to songwriters.
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UMPG also acknowledged in its new statement that “the disruption is difficult for some of [its songwriters]” but says leaving the TikTok app is “critical for the sustained future value, safety and health of the entire music ecosystem.”
At the end of January, UMG announced in a letter to its artists and songwriters that it would be allowing its license with TikTok to expire, saying that TikTok refused to pay the “fair value” of music and no deal could be reached. (Tiktok fired back with its own statement, hours later, saying UMG’s decision was motivated by “greed”.) Within days, UMG tracks were removed from Tiktok en masse, including the catalogs of superstars Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Drake, BTS and more who are signed to UMG record labels. In the letter, the company noted that these takedowns would also include its publishing arm, UMPG, but the publishing-related removals did not begin until Tuesday, Feb. 26.
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Now, any song, even if it was released by a non-UMG record label, is subject to takedown on TikTok if even one UMPG-signed songwriter was involved in its creation. Because UMPG is the second largest publisher in the world, these publishing takedowns were wide reaching, impacting almost every record label in one way or another.
In response to the publishing takedowns, TikTok said in a statement on Wednesday, “[UMG’s] actions not only affect the songwriters and artists that they represent, but now also impact many artists and songwriters not signed to Universal. We remain committed to reaching an equitable agreement with Universal Music Group.”
Read UMPG’s new statement to its songwriters below in full:
TikTok is removing UMPG songs because there is no license in place. As you may have heard, to-date, they have not agreed to recognize the fair value of your songs, which so many other digital partners around the world have done.
As we previously addressed in our open letter, in addition to fair compensation for your songs, the negotiations have also focused on two other critical and equally important issues: protecting you, human artists and songwriters, from the harmful effects of AI; and online safety for TikTok’s users, including your fans which include young children.
TikTok’s intentions with respect to AI are increasingly apparent. While refusing to respond to our concerns about AI depriving songwriters from fair compensation, or provide assurances that they will not train their AI models on your songs, recent media reports reveal “TikTok and ByteDance leaders have long wanted to move the app beyond music.” Reflecting on our open letter, other commentators have noted where this distancing from the music industry could lead, fueled by AI: “TikTok has an incentive to push the use of these AI recordings rather than the copyrighted and licensed recordings.”
Every indication is that they simply do not value your music.
We understand the disruption is difficult for some of you and your careers, and we are sensitive to how this may affect you around the world. We recognize that this might be uncomfortable at the moment. But it is critical for the sustained future value, safety and health of the entire music ecosystem, including all music fans.
As always, UMPG will only support partners that value songwriters, artists and your songs. We have a long history of successfully fighting for our songwriters and will continue to do so. You should expect nothing less from us.
For as long as there’s been a “music business,” creators have been fighting for their fair share, and modern history is replete with examples of corporations trying to shortchange music makers.
Case-in-point: AM/FM radio, where U.S. broadcasters have been getting away with paying artists $0 from their $15 billion-a-year revenue – despite the fact that music is their main input. Their argument? Because radio is supplying “free promotion” for the musicians, they don’t deserve a cut of the profits. Big broadcasters have been pushing this excuse since the 1930s.
Fast forward almost a century, and we’re now seeing this play out with new technology – most recently with the dispute betweenTikTok and Universal Music Group (UMG). Using the same argument as radio broadcasters, TikTok claims its platform provides “free promotion” to artists, and it’s therefore trying to undercut what they pay for the use of their music. But UMG refused to fall for this ploy and has now pulled all of its content from the platform until TikTok agrees to an appropriate licensing fee. As a result, about one-third of the most popular recordings on TikTok, including music from Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and Billie Eilish, are now unavailable on the platform. (And this trend may grow if the dispute expands to the publishing side of the business, with indie publishers’ TikTok license due to expire in April.)
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UMG is doing the right thing by standing up for its artists. The label is making the case that creators should be paid fairly for the use of their tracks, in line with other platforms. (It also seeks to protect artists from the harmful effects of unregulated AI and encourages online safety protocols for users, two things all of us should support.) UMG recognizes that the lure of potentially viral promotion is in no way a substitute for fair compensation to hard-working creators.
Long before social media, companies using others’ musical property have sought to avoid paying fairly for that privilege because of this outdated argument around “promotion.” They tried it in the case of piano rolls, silent movie theaters, retail stores, music venues and even peer-to-peer file sharing platforms like Napster and Grokster. In each of those instances, companies tried to underpay (or not pay at all) for the music on the bogus theory that creators should “just accept the promotion, be thankful for whatever they get, and be on their merry way” – regardless of the immense profits they were making from the use of that music.
Thankfully, in the above cases, players in the music industry stood firm and refused to be blinded by the siren song of promotion. But that clearly hasn’t stopped others from trying the same trick.
TikTok is abusing its reputation as the place where new music is discovered. It’s true that many of today’s popular artists (like Lil Nas X, Doja Cat and Lizzo) first found fame on the platform. It’s also where catalog music is finding new life. There is no disputing the important role TikTok plays in the current music ecosystem. But that is an altogether different question than whether or not TikTok should compensate artists fairly.
Instead of using its power to pay artists less, TikTok should take the opposite approach. It should seek to be the digital home for musicians, the place not just where they can be heard, but where they want to be heard and where their value is recognized. This holds true for superstars, middle-class musicians and up-and-comers praying for their first breakout hit. And it starts with paying all of them fairly in recognition of the critical role they provide to the business, whether they’re receiving “promotion” or not.
Going forward, it’s important that key players, like UMG, take a stand against inequity on every platform that seeks to take advantage of creators.*
*SoundExchange is not involved in collecting sound recording royalties from TikTok.
Michael Huppe is president and CEO of SoundExchange.
Cat Janice, a singer-songwriter whose “Dance You Outta My Head” went viral on TikTok earlier this year, died on Wednesday (Feb. 28). She was 31 years old.
Janice’s brother posted the news to her Instagram page, writing in the caption, “This morning, from her childhood home and surrounded by her loving family, Catherine peacefully entered the light and love of her heavenly creator.”
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The statement continued, “We are eternally thankful for the outpouring of love that Catherine and our family have received over the past few months. Cat saw her music go places she never expected and rests in the peace of knowing that she will continue to provide for her son through her music. This would not have been possible without all of you.”
According to the statement, new music will be released posthumously. “Per Cat’s request, there is some more art that she wants to share too. All in due time,” the statement concludes.
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Janice was diagnosed with sarcoma, a rare cancer that develops in the bones and soft tissues, after noticing a lump in her neck, as she explained on TikTok. She underwent surgery, chemo and radiation before being declared cancer-free on July 22, 2022.
Earlier this year, Janice shared with her followers that the cancer had returned, and she entered hospice. The singer then transferred all of her songs to her seven-year-old son Loren, so that all proceeds from the tracks would go to him.
In a devastating TikTok shared on Jan. 6, she revealed that the cancer had “won” and that she’d be releasing one more song, “Dance Outta My Head,” for her birthday that month. “I want my last song to bring joy and fun! It’s all I’ve ever wanted through my battle with cancer.”
“Please please share this, I need to leave this with [Loren]. If there is anything you need to know, is that the only opinion of yourself is your opinion. Love yourself and be gentle with others. I hope to make it through this but if not, to all a good night,” she captioned the post.
Since then, “Dance Outta My Head” topped the TikTok Billboard Top 50 dated Feb. 17. “Dance You Outta My Head” concurrently reached the top 10 of Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart for the first time, lifting 11-10. It earned 5,000 downloads Feb. 2-8, good enough for its first week at No. 1 on the Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales list, and 1.2 million official U.S. streams, according to Luminate.
Universal Music Group chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge addressed the company’s ongoing licensing dispute with TikTok in its latest earnings call on Wednesday (Feb. 28), saying: “there must not be free rides for massive global platforms such as TikTok that refuse to meaningfully address issues around AI platform safety or pay their fair share for our artists’ and songwriters’ work.”
Boyd Muir, UMG’s CFO and executive vp, also revealed during the earnings call that UMG would “focus on accelerating [its] partnerships” with Meta, Snap, YouTube and more competing social platforms and that it would make more announcements about this “in the coming weeks.”
At the end of January, UMG, the world’s largest music company, opted to let its licensing agreement with TikTok expire, citing that the short-form video app refused to pay the “fair value” for music. It also cited other concerns around artificial intelligence. “TikTok proposed paying our artists and songwriters at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay,” UMG wrote in a letter to its artists. Within hours, TikTok fired back at UMG in reply, saying that the major music company “has put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters.”
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Since then, the companies’ negotiations have been seemingly stuck at a standstill and millions of UMG-controlled recordings have been removed from the platform. Starting Tuesday (Feb. 27), the takedowns went even further, including the removal of any recording that features one or more Universal Music Publishing Group-signed songwriters for the first time. This impacts such major recording artists as Beyoncé, Harry Styles and Bad Bunny, even though they don’t record for UMG.
In response to the publishing takedowns, TikTok said in a statement on Wednesday, “[UMG’s] actions not only affect the songwriters and artists that they represent, but now also impact many artists and songwriters not signed to Universal. We remain committed to reaching an equitable agreement with Universal Music Group.”
UMG’s earnings call on Wednesday focused largely on TikTok during the the question and answer portion, as well as other core development for the company like its new deal with Chord Music Partners.
While UMG has previously said TikTok only makes up about 1% of the company’s total revenue, chief digital officer and executive vp Michael Nash said he believes that’s not necessarily all a loss amid the negotiation standoff. “In general, if consumption shifts from TikTok to other short video platforms like Reels or YouTube Shorts, we believe we can, in fact, recapture some lost revenue,” he said during the call. “Keep in mind, over half of TikTok monthly active users already also use other short video services. In some markets, that percentage is as high as 70%. These are services that monetize engagement at a much higher rate, so revenue positive consumer migration is easily foreseeable.”
Nash also said that UMG has been “providing notices to effectuate the muting of million of videos every day for the last two weeks” on TikTok to aid in the takedown process, which started earlier this month. “And that’s the recorded music content. Keep in mind that our publishing copyrights are just now starting to be enforced on the platform.” He noted that the company has seen “no discernible negative impact” on its “broader digital business’ by leaving TikTok to date but added that “that’s qualified by the fact that we’re very early on in the process… In fact, we’ve seen a slight uptick in terms of frontline consumption and catalog consumption over this short period of time.”
In response to one question about TikTok, Grainge responded, “I’m also not prepared to compromise the future of social category by doing something that completely undermines the economics for us and for everybody else.” One of UMG’s key concerns among the licensing discussions has been that if it were to accept a diminished royalty from TikTok, then other social media platforms could request the same.
But Grainge vowed that UMG likes “to be friendly.” He said, “We are friendly. My phone is open, unfortunately, 24 hours a day. We hope that we can find a solution… we like win-win situations. We’ve laid out what’s important to us, and I believe important to our industry.”
When an investor asked if this remark indicated that UMG was waiting for TikTok to call them and reengage on a deal structure [UMG has] previously presented,” Nash said “we’re not going to comment on the status of discussions with TikTok for obvious reasons.”
At the end of the call, Grainge downplayed TikTok’s impact on music marketing: “I mean, let’s put this into perspective,” he said. “Apple, Amazon, Spotify, YouTube, all the social categories, the fitness categories, digital radio, Sirius, Pandora, iHeart… [TikTok is] one, it’s not a material part of the multidisciplinary jigsaw, where we promote and market our music globally”