In January this year, the music industry was shocked by the news that the two giants Universal Music Group (UMG) and TikTok could not reach a cooperation agreement and officially “broke face to face”. The consequence of this is that UMG removed all artists’ music released through the record label from TikTok. Accordingly, any video using music from UMG will have the sound turned off and a copyright infringement warning will appear.

In January this year, the music industry was shocked by the news that UMG removed all music from TikTok

UMG is the world’s No. 1 record label, currently distributing music to a series of top artists such as Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, BTS, BLACKPINK, Billie Eilish, The Weeknd,… The lack of a huge music store from UMG makes TikTok’s US market share is somewhat struggling. On the evening of April 11, many observant music fans discovered that Taylor Swift’s songs released from 2019 to the present have returned to the TikTok platform. This information makes people excited and confused.

Taylor Swift’s songs released from 2019 to the present have returned to the TikTok platform

The series of albums of “Lord Snake” from Lover to re-recorded albums such as 1989 (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version),… are all licensed to return to TikTok. This happened right before Taylor Swift released her new album The Tortured Poets Department, sparking many speculations about the reason behind it. Of the artists collaborating with UMG, Taylor Swift is currently the only one whose music is returning to TikTok.

Taylor Swift’s new album will be promoted via TikTok without being affected by the ban

According to international media, this move shows that Taylor Swift has complete autonomy over her recordings. Her release contract with Republic Records (UMG’s label) signed from late 2018 until now has the clause “the artist owns full rights to the master”. Therefore, Taylor can completely bring her music back to TikTok without depending on the ban. This will be beneficial for promoting the new album, as TikTok is currently the video sharing platform that attracts the most users.

Taylor Swift has complete autonomy over her recordings