Fans don’t expect you to give up your right to choose your channels or to survive. If you are in a situation where the platform like TikTok overplays their hand and is so unreasonable that you have to walk away, it’s not your fault. It’s your right. But it is undoubtedly inconvenient for fans when platforms are impossible to deal with and their use of the music they love to create UGC is disrupted due to business.

But although TikTok is undoubtedly a big platform, it’s not the only game in town and there are other platforms that are licensed among TikTok’s competitors, particularly YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.

Of course, YouTube started the trend of putting up messages for fans saying “You can’t get what you want because of these enemies of humanity who refuse to recognize our Big Tech Godhead” or something like that. These messages use the terminating licensor’s branding. I have never understood why the public messaging when tracks are taken down for whatever reason is not a material deal point in any license.

These automatic messages are programmed by the terminated service alone. The copy in the message is written by the service alone. There is never input from and certainly no approval of the terminating licensor. 

I find this unusual. For example, these licenses frequently have negotiated rules about mutual approval of press releases, credit, use of brands, display of copyright notices and other public speech. These are widely accepted and largely standard provisions. So if there are rules about some public speech, surely it’s a short step to also include in those rules any automated messages that convey information to the public about the licensor’s exercise of their rights either during or after the term. That licensor approval, especially mutual approval with the licensee, seems quite reasonable particularly if that messaging includes a reference to the licensor or its branding.

It’s entirely justified for license negotiators to require a meeting of the minds about post termination messaging to our fans and their customers when tracks stop becoming available. (We may have driven fans/customers to the platform in the first place for uncompensated customer acquisition cost, but that’s another discussion.)

Points to Consider

Part of that messaging to fans could be suggesting that since that track is no longer available on TikTok (or whoever), go to a platform where it is available on licensed platforms. This is just good consumer information rather than creating the confusing implication that it’s not available on TikTok so it’s not available anywhere.

Then the question is how to convey that information on alternate legal sites in a way that doesn’t become an unreasonable expectation of the terminated service and also doesn’t favor someone else. It seems like one easy way to do this would be to create a page of licensed platforms that excludes the terminated platform and put that link in the “track unavailable” message. An example is the “Why Music Matters” site, but obviously excluding the terminated site as to the catalog concerned.

This will require having control over that message and the right to force a correction if the platform fails to comply.

It may not be that simple for fans to move videos from one platform to another with the music intact, but that should be considered.

Fans don’t expect artists or songwriters to take a rube deal just to keep making tracks available on a platform that doesn’t respect them. But both the platform and the copyright owner should want to make it easy on fans rather than confusing consumers with a self-serving message.

If you want to explain why a track is no longer available, explain it. Don’t make it more confusing.