Picture Credit: Eyestetix Studio
On January 30 Universal Music Group revealed it would not restore its international licensing handle TikTok. The spat over UMG music now has most videos including UMG/UMPG music silenced on the platform, however the blowback from artists hasn’t phased UMG executives.
Universal Music Group explains in its newest Q4 2023 revenues call that earnings made from TikTok represent just 1% of the business’s overall profits. Here’s UMG’s CFO Boyd Muir verifying that information on the call. “With regard to TikTok we’ve divulged that our previous offer produced about 1% of overall UMG yearly profits,” Muir states.
Taking that into account, with UMG’s full-year profits reported at $12 billion methods the TikTok offer was just worth about $120 million. Muir appears to validate that as he confesses UMG is concentrating on other social platforms.
“Because other platforms in the social video classification attained much higher money making, we’re concentrated on accelerating our collaborations with YouTube, Meta, Snap, and others. And we eagerly anticipate upgrading you in the coming weeks ahead about amazing competitive advancements and incremental chances emerging within the classification.”
CEO Sir Lucian Grainge repeats that Universal Music does not like the instructions TikTok is headed with its suite of AI tools, either. “Relating to a crucial issue we have with TikTok, our accountable AI effort was introduced in 2015 to put the defense of artists and the development of their interest at the extremely core of how we consider AI,” Grainge states.
“It consists of things like making sure that human artists are not financially disadvantaged, securities versus deep phonies and openness requirements for AI business relating to how they train their designs on our IP and the artists work and their imagination.”
“It is important that as a market we promote for the general public policies that put suitable guardrails in location, so that the marketplace can best provide win-win results,” Grainge states of AI guideline. “That’s precisely at the core of who and what we are. Which’s why we’re creating ingenious economic sector collaborations with AI tech business.”
He likewise repeats that TikTok was obtaining more worth from the UMG brochure than it was paying back the significant label by stating ‘totally free does not work for us.”
“Let me be clear– complimentary does not work for us. We have actually invested years developing a course to digital money making in each and every single classification,” Grainge informed financiers.
“The money making is so bad that a very little transfer into other platforms will have a much better monetary result for us. And I’m likewise not prepared to jeopardize the future of the social classificationby doing something that entirely weakens the economics for us and for everyone else about that.”