At the start of 2024, Universal Music Group (UMG) announced that they would pull all songs by signed artists off TikTok. On February 27th, K-pop fans got another shock when a bunch of popular hits by BLACKPINK, BTS, and many other K-pop groups were muted due to copyright.
Basically, almost every song by BLACKPINK, including solo tracks by the four members, got taken down from TikTok. If you went to BLACKPINK’s TikTok channel, you’d find that 90% of the videos there had their sound completely wiped out.
Similarly, two songs by Jungkook, “Standing Next To You” and “Seven,” were removed from TikTok because of copyright issues. Loads of videos using those songs’ audio on BTS and Jungkook’s TikTok channels got their sound muted too. There were also several songs removed from BTS’s TikTok channel.
It’s not just BLACKPINK and BTS either; other groups like SEVENTEEN, TXT, TREASURE, and NewJeans had multiple songs muted on TikTo.
Universal Music Group (UMG) made waves in the music industry with their official announcement to remove all songs by signed artists from TikTok. As the world’s largest record label, UMG has a massive music library featuring the biggest artists like Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Bad Bunny, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Adele, Drake, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, Rosalía, Harry Styles, …
The clash between TikTok and UMG became a hot topic among music fans. It wasn’t just fans of Western artists who were concerned; even K-pop fans were worried about the impact on their idols when UMG pulled music from TikTok.
Since K-pop groups are known for their music and dance, their absence from participating in dance challenges on TikTok will be a significant loss in reaching the public.
Source: K14
