It has been reported that Universal Music Group "will cease licensing content" to TikTok and TikTok Music services, meaning its entire catalogue will be pulled from the social media platform, a process which is said to be already underway and will continue through the next few days.

Earlier today, Universal announced that its current licensing agreement with TikTok expires today (January 31). UMG also published an open letter on its site, accusing TikTok of "trying to build a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music."

UMG's open letter also alleged that TikTok tried to "bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth. How did it try to intimidate us? By selectively removing the music of certain of our developing artists, while keeping on the platform our audience-driving global stars."

The letter went on to accuse TikTok of being "indifferent" to the issue of AI imitating artists an infringing upon their rights. "TikTok is allowing the platform to be flooded with AI-generated recordings," the letter reads, "as well as developing tools to enable, promote and encourage AI music creation on the platform itself—and then demanding a contractual right which would allow this content to massively dilute the royalty pool for human artists, in a move that is nothing short of sponsoring artist replacement by AI."

Finally, UMG also expressed concern of the issue of hate speech, bullying and illicit deepfake content. Taylor Swift, signed to UMG, was recently at the centre of a scandal where deepfaked sexual images of the singer were spread across social media, including TikTok.

UMG's statement says that TikTok "has offered no meaningful solutions to the rising tide of content adjacency issues, let alone the tidal wave of hate speech, bigotry, bullying and harassment on the platform. The only means available to seek the removal of infringing or problematic content (such as pornographic deepfakes of artists) is through the monumentally cumbersome and inefficient process which equates to the digital equivalent of “Whack-a-Mole."

In response, TikTok has said: "It is sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group has put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters.

"Despite Universal's false narrative and rhetoric, the fact is they have chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform with well over a billion users that serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle for their talent.

"TikTok has been able to reach 'artist-first' agreements with every other label and publisher. Clearly, Universal's self-serving actions are not in the best interests of artists, songwriters and fans."

You can read UMG's open letter here and TikTok's response here.