Sydney pop musician Kota Banks has decried the latest decision by social media behemoth TikTok to limit music on its posts. The news, first reported by Bloomberg, sees TikTok running an experiment on Australian users limiting their ability to add music to their videos.
The Music Network reached out to TikTok, who replied in a statement: “Over the coming weeks we will be running a test in Australia to analyse how music is accessed and used on the platform. Not all music is included in this test and we do not expect it to impact everyone on TikTok.” The statement continues, “For more than half of our community there will be no change to their experience and the test will not impact them.”
Kota Banks Calls Out Tik Tok’s “Lazy and Inconsiderate” Test
Kota Banks, however, found that she was one of the people affected by TikTok’s decision when she was unable to add her own music to posts, limiting her ability to promote her new single ‘Girls World’. In an Instagram post she calls out the test as “lazy and inconsiderate”. “It’s giving ‘y’all wanna use us but you don’t really give a fuck,’” Banks says. “That’s what it’s giving.”
In their articles, both The Music Network and Bloomberg suggest that TikTok’s decision is financially motivated as they seek to put a numerical value on music within the app, which they may then use as a bargaining tool with music publishers. The experiment may raise some eyebrows, particularly given the social media company’s recent announcement of their own music marketing and distribution platform, SoundOn, which we wrote about here.
In her plea to TikTok, Banks delivers a final message: “Find a more artist friendly way to do this analysis because you are literally putting all these independent artists at a disadvantage.”
Further Reading
TikTok Launches Music Marketing And Distribution Platform, SoundOn
PREMIERE: Kota Banks Cuts Out The BS In ‘Snip Snip’ Video
PSA: TikTok Has Bumped Its Max Video Length Up To 10 Minutes
