Taylor Swift's music returns to TikTok
By Hafsa Khalil
Taylor Swift’s songs are back on TikTok after her label stopped licensing its content to the Chinese-owned app.
Her music’s return on Thursday comes ahead of the release of her new album, The Tortured Poets Department.
Universal Music pulled songs by its artists in January, including Rihanna and Ariana Grande, citing a licensing dispute.
Many artists have complained about inadequate royalty payments from TikTok.
While many of her songs – including You Belong With Me and Cruel Summer – are again available for users to add to their videos, music belonging to Universal’s other artists has still not been relisted.
That may be because unlike other artists, Swift owns the copyright to her music under the terms of a 2018 deal with Universal. Some reports speculated Swift reached a separate deal with TikTok.
In an open letter published on 30 January, Universal claimed that “ultimately TikTok is trying to build a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music”.
Universal said it was also concerned about getting fair compensation for artists for AI-generated songs made to sound like the real thing, such as one made to sound like Drake and The Weeknd which went viral.
