MTP readers know that I’ve got no time for the scumbags at TikTok and never have. But it’s getting ridiculous and now the company has collided with Universal just in time for tomorrow’s hearing at the US Senate on child exploitation and big tech where TikTok’s CEO will testify.

It was only a matter of time.  The artist-centric approach to royalty payments endorsed by Lucian Grainge requires more of the platforms than just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  It requires that the services say goodbye to a flat royalty pool calculated using impenetrable algorithms, formulas, and Malthusian algebra.  

It requires that the services open their checkbooks.  For you pie fans, it requires that the services grow the pie.  And not just for sound recordings, but songwriters, too.

If the collision between TikTok and Universal is any indication, getting past the threshold question is going to be a battle royale.

Here’s the other insulting part:  TikTok apparently wants to be able to create AI works (from whatever source derived) and repopulate their offering with these allegedly royalty free works–fully weaponized.  Of course, AI tracks should not be royalty free at all since the AI will inevitably be ripped off from somebody.  

As I understand it, TikTok wants to salt the royalty pool with AI to increase the denominator and lower the per-stream royalty.  This, of course is insane. Whatever you think about AI, before you even get there it should be obvious that only royalty bearing tracks should be in the calculation for paying royalties.  Otherwise, the payments will be understated.  Which is of course what TikTok wants. Which was inevitable as soon as monkeys took photos.

But perhaps even more troubling is TikTok’s apparent refusal to be transparent about what it is doing to stop recruiting for illegal cartel activities, child trafficking and promoting hate speech—especially real porn with fake artist images. Truly vile and TikTok has been getting sued for child endangerment for years. They could do it but they won’t fix what Lucian calls “the tidal wave of hate speech, bigotry, bullying and harassment on the platform.” It smacks of the worst days of uncontrolled brand sponsored piracy.

Whatever bright and shiny object TikTok and their legion of lobbyists waive in front of artists, who is willing to have their music used as a honeypot for harmful acts served up to their fans using one of the worst propaganda tools in human history?

It’s time for big changes at TikTok and if they are unwilling to modernize and reimagine their business, those who want to shut them down will be unleashed.  

And may find some new allies.