In the past 2023, the life of the **industry is not easy, the rapid maturity of AIGC (generative artificial intelligence) has made it also enter this field in a big way, and the lyrics and music scores generated by AI are flooded on the **stream** platform, among which the three major record giants of Sony**, Universal ** and Warner** have been particularly affected. However, the entry of AI may still have a substantial impact on the global ** industry, and the biggest headache for these record giants may be how to play with platforms such as TikTok.
Now there is a record giant trying to cut ties with TikTok in an attempt to suppress its growing influence in the ** field. A few days ago, Universal** issued a statement saying that our contract with TikTok will expire on January 3, 2024, and if a new agreement is not reached, the song will be removed from TikTok. This also means that a large number of globally influential singers such as Taylor Swift, Drake, Billie Eilish, Justin Bieber, Adele, U2, Coldplay, etc., will disappear from TikTok.
In response to Universal's move, TikTok also issued a statement saying, "It is sad and disappointing that Universal** has put its greed above the interests of their artists and composers." This is despite the fact that Universal**'s false narratives and rhetoric are that they have chosen to abandon the strong backing of a platform with over 1 billion users, which is a free promotion and discovery tool for their talents. TikTok has been able to reach 'artist-first' agreements with all other labels and publishers. ”
According to the news, there are two key differences between Universal** and TikTok over the renewal of their contracts, namely the need for TikTok to provide appropriate compensation to its artists and songwriters and songwriters, and the need to protect human artists from harmful AI content. It is reported that Global ** accused TikTok of building a **-based business without paying a reasonable ** for **, and TikTok tried to coerce us into accepting a deal with a lower value than the previous one, well below the fair market value, and did not reflect their exponential growth (in usage). ”
According to Universal**, they analyzed their revenue composition and found that the share from TikTok accounted for only 1% of the total revenue. You know, the key reason why record giants cooperate with TikTok is that the latter can help them promote ** in disguise, and has become the best marketing tool in the hands of record labels. After all, Douyin was originally positioned as a short** community, and this name alone is enough to prove that ** has an extremely important role for Douyin, and even for all short** platforms.
*This is an important part of the short**,The short **content without the background** is like having no soul.**Ear-catching** is also the power of the short** to go viral**. If there is no **divine comedy such as "Wolf Disco", "Learn to Meow", "Summer Wind", "Divination" and so on, Douyin's short** is obviously unlikely to be overwhelming, and the same is true for overseas TikTok.
Today, TikTok has become a similar existence to the Billboard Hot 100 list produced by Billboard monthly magazine, and has become a scene for European and American record labels to promote ** works.
But the problem is that Universal** thinks that TikTok brings too little revenue. At present, TikTok's cooperation with record companies is buyout, not revenue sharing, that is, TikTok will spend money to obtain copyright authorization for a certain period of time, rather than sharing the traffic of each artist or label on TikTok. After a one-time advance payment on TikTok, how users use these **, how many times these ** are ** used, and how much revenue they produce are all irrelevant to the record company.
In fact, it is not difficult to guess the real intention of the global ** side, which is nothing more than that they have not been able to share the benefits that match their own contributions from the rapid growth of TikTok. In fact, the news that the three major record giants are negotiating with TikTok on advertising revenue, hoping to share advertising revenue with TikTok and increase royalty sharing, has not stopped throughout 2023.
In fact, in a sense, Universal**'s announcement that it will stop providing ** copyright authorization to TikTok is also a game method, and it is a response to TikTok's tentative removal of the three major record labels from the services provided by Australian users last year**.
It's not just that they haven't been negotiated, but the more serious differences also occur in the different attitudes of the two sides towards AI. As a technology company, TikTok is obviously as active in chasing AI as Microsoft and Meta, and is laissez-faire about AI-generated AI on the platform, and has also developed the creation tool Ripple to support, promote and encourage users to create AI. But just as artists disparage AI painting as "corpse splicing", the industry is also extremely afraid of the penetration of AI.
The emergence of AI** and related supporting tools means that an ordinary person without relevant training, even if he lacks music theory knowledge, can produce acceptable ** with the assistance of AI. If everyone can make a good **, this is not only not a good thing for a record giant like Universal**, but it will be a disaster. After all, a rapidly growing content pool will reduce the dependence on large copyright owners, which in turn will dilute the latter's market share. That's why, in the past three years, record companies have signed artists at an unprecedented rate.
If it is said that AI will lower the threshold for creation, and then lead to the inability of the world, as a vested interest, to continue to maintain market competitiveness is a long-term concern, then AI directly imitating the image and voice of star singers is obviously a near-term worry. Last spring, a TikTok user uploaded a song called "Heart on My Sleeve", relying on the use of AI to imitate the hip-hop singer Drake of Universal**, this AIGC work has gained more than 10 million ** in a short period of time.
Whether it is talking about the current income or the pattern of the future ** industry, the contradiction between Universal** and TikTok as a record giant is difficult to reconcile, so the parting of ways between the two is almost inevitable.