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Universal Music’s War on TikTok: Behind the Battle Plan
The biggest company in the business launched a nuclear strike. Here’s what that means for other rights holders.
That means songs byHarry Styles, SZA and Bad Bunny; those with writing credit from creators like Metro Boomin and Jack Antonoff; and even those that sample compositions by UMPG songwriters. For years, rights holders have embraced TikTok as a promotional vehicle while griping about the short-form video platform’s low payouts in what seemed like a repeat of the music industry’s contentious relationship with YouTube. For the last two decades, most of the negotiations between media and technology companies have involved a few rights holders that each control significant amounts of content and a platform that has a larger share in its market than they do — think labels and streaming services or book publishers and Amazon.
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