Recently, users discovered that many songs by Kpop artists such as BTS, Blackpink , NCT,… suddenly disappeared from TikTok. The reason comes from the unsuccessful license negotiations between Universal Music Group (the company that manages the artist’s music license) and this platform.

Previously, in January, The New York Times reported on negotiations between Universal Music and TikTok, related to the music copyrights of hundreds of artists.

However, the conversation did not come to fruition and ended with the statement: “Universal Music has left TikTok.”

The two sides disagree on the cost of using the content. Even the artist’s music license management unit publicly criticized: “TikTok is not willing to pay a reasonable value for the use of music.”

In response to the above move, TikTok responded, “They are acting beyond our support, a platform with more than 1 billion users for free advertising.”

This social network also accused Universal Music of not caring about the interests of artists and musicians.

As noted, artists collaborating with Universal Music include BTS, Blackpink, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Ariana Grande, Drake…

Currently, this social networking platform has a notification “sound is muted due to copyright issues”. Videos using music from the above artists are played on mute.

The above situation will significantly impact Universal Music as well as famous artists. The New York Times predicted that the number of affected videos and music could reach millions.