Millions of videos were muted Thursday on TikTok following a contract dispute with Universal Music Group (UMG), which licenses its music to the popular video hosting platform. The contract expired on January 31. According to an open letter published on its website January 30, UMG explained that it removed its music from TikTok because of a lack of appropriate compensation for artists’ and songwriters’ work, failure to protect human artists from the impact of artificial intelligence and a lack of effort to protect users online. The decision means that songs by popular artists like Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift, Adele and Drake will be muted on the platform over the coming days. UMG wrote that TikTok is proposing to pay its artists and songwriters “at a rate that is a fraction of the rate” that similar platforms pay, and that TikTok accounts for 1% of their total revenue. Upon addressing these issues with TikTok, UMG said that TikTok responded “first with indifference, and then intimidation,” by removing up-and-coming artists from the platform while keeping music from more popular artists…Read more