NMPA urges Congress to investigate TikTok for copyright infringement

By Emmanuel Legrand

The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) has asked Congress to investigate TikTok over concern that the Chinese-owned social network app was engaging in or allowing potential copyright infringement. In a letter to Senator Marco Rubio, NMPA president and CEO David Israelite, wrote: "The scale of TikTok’s copyright infringement in the US is likely considerable and deserves scrutiny. We hope that if Congress looks further into matters relating to TikTok that copyright theft is included in the scope of its examination.”

  Rubio himself had sent a letter to US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin asking for an investigation into TikTok's policies by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Rubio in particular singled out TikTok's reported censoring of postings favourable to the upheaval in Hong Kong.

  The NMPA is asking for the investigation to go further and include potential copyright infringement. “In addition to important censorship concerns, it appears that TikTok has consistently violated US copyright law and the rights of songwriters and music publishers,” wrote the NMPA. “Many videos uploaded to TikTok incorporate musical works that have not been licensed and for which copyright owners are not being paid.”

Licensing issues

  TikTok is owned by Chinese media company ByteDance, which bought in 2017 the app Musical.ly and re-branded it TikTok for the international markets. At this stage, TikTok, which allows users to share short videos, has not been fully licensed by rights holders, even though several publishers and labels have made deals with the service.

  A spokesperson for TikTok, contacted by MBW, said that TikTok had "broad licensing coverage across the music publishing industry covering many thousands of publishers and songwriters and millions of copyrights, and has paid royalties since its inception.”