TikTok Cuts More Songs Amid Its Fight With Universal Music

is forced to remove more music from its platform as royalties with Universal Music Group (UMG) rumble. UMG recently owns or distributes from TikTok, including tracks from superstars like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and The Weeknd. The standoff is now affecting songs released by UMG, with millions more tracks expected to be muted on TikTok by the end of this week.

The final step in this saga involves works by artists who have partnered with songwriters under contract with Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), according to . Due to an issue called copyright sharing, if a writer under contract with UMPG contributed to a song in any way, that track may need to be removed from TikTok. So artists who have collaborated with Swift, Adele, Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey, Ice Spice, Elton John, Harry Styles and SZA could see their songs disappear from TikTok and be muted on videos that currently use them. The move will prevent more artists from releasing their work on music’s largest promotion platform.

According to , UMG removed around three million songs from TikTok after a deal on its recording catalog expired. UMG’s deal with TikTok over its publishing catalog (which covers some four million songs) ends later this week, at which point all relevant tracks could disappear from the short-form video service.