TikTok may find itself without the music of thousands of Universal Music Group (UMG) artists including Taylor Swift after talks to extend a licensing deal hit an impasse.
UMG, one of the world’s dominant music publishers, issued an open letter on Tuesday, excoriating Chinese-owned TikTok for offering unfair terms and threatening the livelihood of artists with its embrace of artificial intelligence.
The social video platform responded by accusing UMG of putting greed before the interests of artists and songwriters.
The existing terms between UMG — which counts Swift and Drake among the performers signed to its labels — and TikTok expire on Wednesday and, absent a new agreement, UMG could pull its artists’ content from the platform.
While TikTok accounts for only 1% of UMG’s sales, its renewal offer was “less than the previous deal, far less than fair market…
