In a surprise move, Taylor Swift‘s songs have returned to TikTok after a 10-week hiatus amid a licensing dispute between the app and Universal Music Group.
As of Thursday morning, multiple Swift songs — including “You Belong With Me,” “Lover,” “Cardigan,” “Mirrorball,” “Fearless (Taylor’s Version),” “Cruel Summer,” “Cardigan,” “Style (Taylor’s Version),” “Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version),” “The Man” and “ME!” — were available on the TikTok app for users to incorporate into their videos.
The return of Swift’s music to TikTok comes ahead of the release of her next studio album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” due out April 19.
Swift’s catalog of music was among the tracks pulled from TikTok in February, after the app company and UMG failed to renew a licensing pact that expired Jan. 31. Universal Music accused TikTok of trying to “bully” the music company into a deal worth less than their previous agreement — and alleged TikTok was not willing to address AI and piracy concerns. TikTok countered that Universal was engaging in “false narrative and rhetoric.”
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However, it seems likely that the platform reached a separate deal with Swift, who owns her masters and presumably would have the ability to strike her own arrangement, even though her music is distributed by UMG and she signed with the company’s publishing division in 2020. While TikTok is responsible for muting UMG’s music on the platform, songs by artists signed to or distributed by UMG — including Ariana Grande and Camila Cabello, as noted by Variety last month — continue to pop up on the platform, posted by fans or, some suspect, representatives of the artists themselves.
It is also possible that, with Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” arriving next Friday, she is partnering with TikTok to promote it, as she did for her last album of all-new material, “Midnights.” For that album, she supplied a track reveal video for every track on the album, exclusively to the platform. This could potentially signal that an exception was made for Swift, with UMG’s acquiescence.
While artists generally agree with UMG’s points regarding low royalty payments and inadequate protection against AI, many have complained bitterly about the situation: Over the past five years, TikTok has become the single biggest platform for discovering and promoting music, and labels often badgered their artists to write songs that will “go viral” on the platform — and many UMG-affiliated artists have done so, only to see their music muted on the platform. Neither UMG nor TikTok appear to be backing down from the battle.
Asked for clarification about the reappearance of Swift’s songs on the app, a TikTok rep declined to comment. Reps for Swift and UMG did not immediately respond to Variety‘s requests for comment.
In 2020, Swift signed an exclusive global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, after being with Sony/ATV since she the beginning of her career. In late February, TikTok removed songs licensed from Universal Music Publishing, after the earlier removal of recordings owned or distributed by UMG.
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