Earlier last month thousands of songs from artists under the Universal Music Group (UMG) label were pulled from TikTok after their license to use them on the platform expired. A new agreement failed to be agreed with UMG claiming TikTok refused to pay proper compensation to continue offering music from artists such as Coldplay, Siti Nurhaliza, Taylor Swift and Drake.
Today more songs were pulled from TikTok after an agreement with Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) lapsed. According to this publishing agreement, music written by artists under UMG will also be pulled. Music by Beyonce and Harry Styles that will now be leaked from TikTok even though they are not artists under UMG because the songs were written by UMG artists like Sza.
TikTok videos that use music that has been pulled are now muted on the platform. As one of the world's largest publishing companies, UMG wants to show TikTok that they don't need the social media platform to market their artists. On the other hand, TikTok will be worse affected.