Warner Music Group (WMG) has signed a new licensing deal with the short-form video and social media platform TikTok, according to Music Business Worldwide. This licensing agreement allows the service to use music from WMG’s publishing division Warner Chappell Music and WMG’s recorded music catalog.
TikTok is the latest social media platform that WMG has been licensing deals with, alongside services such as Facebook and Snapchat. These deals are expected to create new revenue streams for the major label in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It feels like we’ve seen years’ worth of change and evolution in the course of a handful of months,” WMG Chief Digital Officer Oana Ruxandra told Bloomberg regarding their new social media strategy. “We want to ensure there’s value for our artists across the board, and the goal is to ensure that they make money to live their lives.”
This deal comes at an urgent time for WMG, who posted a $470 million net loss in November as result of the COVID-19 pandemic. These losses have been persistent for much of the year, as the pandemic slows physical music sales, leading major labels to rely more heavily on streaming.
TikTok reached a licensing deal with Sony in November, meaning that the platform currently holds deals with two of the three biggest record labels. Last March TikTok signed short-term deals with Sony, WMG and Universal Music Group, the final “big three label,” but this deal was reportedly shorter than the typical 18-month contracts labels usually sign with tech companies.
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