Washington, Jan 30 (EFE).- Universal Music Group's contract with TikTok is set to expire after the companies failed to reach agreements on artist compensation, artificial intelligence and user safety, the group said in a furious open letter Tuesday.

The music industry giant - home to superstars such as Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny - accused the short-video platform, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, of using bullying and intimidation tactics to get the record label to accept a deal "worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth."

The current contract is set to expire midnight Wednesday.

UMG said that TikTok proposed to pay its artists "at a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay."

The record company added that the platform has also refused to take sufficient measures to protect artists from the flood of AI-generated recordings and artist copyright infringements, as well as offering "no meaningful solutions to the (.) tidal wave of hate speech, bigotry, bullying and harassment on the platform."

It said that as negotiations continued, "TikTok attempted to bully us."

"How did it try to intimidate us? By selectively removing the music of certain of our developing artists, while keeping on the platform our audience-driving global stars.

"TikTok's tactics are obvious: use its platform power to hurt vulnerable artists and try to intimidate us into conceding to a bad deal that undervalues music and shortchanges artists and songwriters as well as their fans. We will never do that," the letter said.

In response, TikTok said it was "sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group has put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters."

"Despite Universal's false narrative and rhetoric, the fact is they have chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform with well over a billion users that serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle for their talent.

"TikTok has been able to reach 'artist-first' agreements with every other label and publisher. Clearly, Universal's self-serving actions are not in the best interests of artists, songwriters and fans," it concluded.

Content creators on the platform frequently use songs by popular Universal artists in their videos.

Other artists on UMG labels include Sting, The Weeknd, Alicia Keys, SZA, Drake, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, Rosalía, Harry Styles, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Adele, U2, Elton John, J Balvin, Brandi Carlile, Coldplay, Pearl Jam, Bob Dylan and Post Malone.

The platform is also used by emerging or already positioned artists to promote their music, which can go viral as users put their recordings in their videos.

However, UMG said TikTok accounts for only about 1 percent of its total revenue. EFE

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