Leadership / 03.04.24

TikTok’s Dispute With Universal Music Proves Songwriters Are Still on an Uneven Playing Field

Access Staff

Variety (02/29/24) Israelite, David

National Music Publishers Association President and CEO David Israelite writes that songwriters have always struggled to be treated fairly, and "never has this been truer than in the current dispute between TikTok and Universal Music Group (UMG)." UMG's record labels recently pulled the rights to their sound recordings off of TikTok after the parties failed to come to an agreement. Due to the fact that Universal Music Publishing Group was also not able to come to an agreement, the rights to the songs they owned were also pulled. "Present in this discussion . . . is the clear bias that somehow the rights of the songwriters do not carry equal weight to the rights of well-known recording artists," Israelite states. "I've seen that bias frequently over my 20 years representing music publishers and their songwriter partners. It is wrong, and it needs to be called out." He goes on to make three points. One, it's important to note that the copyright of a song carries equal weight to the copyright from the sound recording. Two, in addition to the law giving equal weight to both, the free market has historically valued the two different interests equally. And, three, "when it comes to the creative process of making music, songwriting cannot be undervalued," Israelite concludes.

Read the full story from Variety.

Tags: Leadership , Tik Tok