Owning big names like Taylor Swift and Kayne, UMG is in the background of many social media platforms that function when it comes to their music. TikTok was not an exception but on February 1st after failure to agree on new contract terms for renewal, UMG pulled all of their artists’ music from the platform including from said artists’ videos.
TikTok has gained popularity because it helped promote new music to a large audience, benefiting both the large and small creators. Now that all these major names have lost their chances, smaller artists may begin to invade the scene to make up for the loss in sounds.
“I feel like everyone is stressing out way too much because some music is gone like we don’t have all these other songs from people who aren’t with that big company, ” sophomore Rebekah Arrington said. “It’s gonna look a little different for a while but the world is big enough we will be able to get over not hearing some artist on just one app.”
Some don’t expect as big a change as others with the need to replace old audios owned by UMG.
“I just don’t think it was fully thought about because it’s not gonna stop people from using the artist they like,” junior Paris Egbert said. “They’re just going to start barely editing it so it doesn’t get noticed by like a system and use those same songs they had before if they want to. It’s the same thing people do so they can repost a TV show or movie clips, make it a little faster and it won’t get taken down.”
Others find it rather hilarious to hear copyright-free music being played over videos that were previously muted.
“It does suck that everyone used those sounds and it included such major artists,” sophomore Katelyn Davis said. “At the same time though hearing such goofy music over these serious edits and video topics is funny, but equally as weird to see. It’s like the music you used to hear on those weird online kids’ games because they didn’t want to pay for the music.”
At the end of the day, users hope to see TikTok return to a mostly normal state and continue to enjoy the musical app.
“I think that music getting taken down off TikTok is going to affect influencers more than a regular user,” senior Ana Calderon said. “The only solution that wouldn’t cause more problems is getting the rights shared again because stealing the music won’t help at all.”
