Read Universal Music CEO Lucian Grainge’s Letter to Staff on TikTok Settlement: ‘Human Artistry Must Be Respected’

variety.com:

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music In the wee hours of Thursday — 2:35 a.m, ET, to be precise — Universal Music Group and TikTok announced the settlement of their three-month standoff over royalties, AI policies and other issues.

The battle was significantly disruptive to the industry but most of all to artists, thousands of whom suddenly found their music muted on the world’s most powerful platform for discovering and promoting music.

While terms of the deal remain opaque, UMG chairman-CEO Lucian Grainge spoke about it at length in a letter to staff obtained by Variety.

In it, he gives very broad explanations of the terms, including (in the case of AI), “protecting human artists from being economically disadvantaged by AI; guarding against the use of AI-generated deepfakes; and requiring transparency in how AI companies train their models.” He also states that “artist and songwriter compensation will be greater than under our prior TikTok deal, and the total value UMG’s artists and songwriters garner from this partnership will be more closely aligned with other platforms in the social music category,” without providing further specifics.