Some of us will not be able to recover from this.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Grace Gardner is an independent musician.
There was no road map forward, Gardner says.
On February 1, UMG let its licensing deal with TikTokexpire.
Gardner isnt on a UMG label.
Exposure would be crucial to earning back their $10,000 advance.
(Imperial Music did not respond to a request for comment.)
But not all of the indie community is on board.
Is this a competition to see who can underpay artists more?
Additional independent music could leave the platform in May,whenthe National Music Publishers Associations TikTok license will expire.
(And this is all playing out asa House billconsiders banning TikTok in the U.S.
Many independent artists assumed that, because UMG is a major-label conglomerate, their music would be safe.
Thank God I was never signed to a UMG label, says pop musician Ella Jane, 22.
No, you dont.
Thats not how this works.
Preach, like Fader, is distributed by Virgin under UMG.
Verskotzi finally got the music back online days later, after Preach worked with their Virgin and UMG contacts.
But he didnt realize his songs may have been maliciously taken down until he read UMGs February 1 letter.
That just pulled the rug out from under me in an emotional way, says Verskotzi, 32.
To understand that vulnerable, developing artists were just part of TikToks bidding, essentially that hurts.
Verskotzi was one of at least three artists on Preach who experienced issues uploading new music in December.
There is no world where that is okay.
Used to functioning as one-person teams, some independent artists quickly found workarounds to keep promoting themselves on TikTok.
I was attracting a new audience in a way that I hadnt before, she says.
It was all these people who really want to support smaller artists.
I hadnt seen it in years.
Too many marketing agencies or digital-ad agencies have started labels, and thats their entire focus, he says.
Instead, Verskotzi sees TikTokas just another checklist on my marketing campaigns, no different from another social-media platform.
The body of work that I just released is not meant for these seven-second moments, he says.
Its a true rock-and-roll album.
I pressed it on vinyl.
Its nota TikTok album.
They made morein the last yearthan Ill make probably in my entire lifetime.
Verskotzi struggles to see TikTok as pro-artist, either, even after his music was allegedly targeted.
Where many artists do agree is that TikToks role in the music industry needs to change.
Comeau worries, though, about what happens if this forces TikTok to focus less on music entirely.
But he cant bring himself to stand with UMG.
TikTok has done a lot more for my career than UMG ever has, Comeau says.
