TikTok Signs Distribution Deal With UnitedMasters, Giving Musicians on the App the Ability to Distribute Music on Major Streaming Services

TikTok has signed a major distribution deal with UnitedMasters, a music distribution company to become the app’s TikTok’s first fully-integrated distributor. This new distribution service will allow users to distribute their original music from the app onto Amazon Music, Apple Music, Google Play Music, Pandora and Spotify.

“If you are a musical artist, TikTok is the best place for your music to go viral and UnitedMasters is the best place to sustain it while retaining full ownership of your work,” Steve Stoute, founder and CEO of UnitedMasters said in a statement. “By combining the two, we create the platform for tomorrow’s stars who will be famous, fiercely independent and wealthy.”

Multiple artists have credited the platform as launching their music into commercial success, with Lil Nas X crediting the platform for its role in popularizing “Old Town Road,” the longest-running number one single of all time. A few music outlets have also begun to take notice of artists emerging from the platform, while many people have begun to create guides on TikTok music promotion.

This news comes only a week after U.S. President Donald Trump stated he would ban the app if it was not acquired by an American company within 45 days. A main cause of this controversy is due to TikTok being owned by Chinese company, ByteDance and concerns raised by the user-data it collects. This comes a little over a month after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated he was looking at banning the app, and other Chinese-owned social media apps. TikTok denies sending any personal data from U.S. user over to China.