TikTok Signs Multi-Year Deal With Music Publishers

TikTok’s transition to legitimate music service took a major step forward with today’s announcement of a multi-year deal with The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA).

This retroactive deal gives NMPA members the ability to opt-in to a licensing framework that will pay for usage dating back to May 1, 2020.

Yesterday, Tik Tok announced the signing of indie music group Believe and its Tunecore subsidiary.

David Israelite, President & CEO of NMPA, said, “We are pleased to find a way forward with TikTok which benefits songwriters and publishers and offers them critical compensation for their work. Music is an important part of apps like TikTok which merge songs with expression and popularize new music while also giving new life to classic songs. This agreement respects the work of creators and gives them a way to be paid for their essential contributions to the platform.”

Ole Obermann, Global Head of Music at TikTok, said, “TikTok is proud to partner with music publishers and songwriters to enable artist and song discovery, and support revenue opportunities. We’re excited to partner with the NMPA to bring their member companies on to the platform and help hundreds of millions of people discover and enjoy their songs. We look forward to continuing to work with songwriters to help them use TikTok as a powerful and innovative channel to reach a global audience through a unique format of creation and engagement.”