This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Deals Labels & Publishers
Merlin announces licensing deal with TikTok
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 24 January 2020
Indie label digital rights agency Merlin has announced a new licensing deal with still-super-hyped-for-now video-sharing platform TikTok. The deal, Merlin says, means that labels and distributors allied to the agency can make their music available via TikTok “wherever the platform is available around the world”.
Merlin’s newly appointed CEO, Jeremy Sirota, says of the deal: “This partnership with TikTok is very significant for us. We are seeing a new generation of music services and a new era of music-related consumption, much of it driven by the global demand for independent music. Merlin members are increasingly using TikTok for their marketing campaigns, and today’s partnership ensures that they and their artists can also build new and incremental revenue streams”.
Meanwhile TikTok’s Global Head Of Music, Ole Obermann, adds: “Independent artists and labels are such a crucial part of music creation and consumption on TikTok. We’re excited to partner with Merlin to bring their family of labels to the TikTok community. The breadth and diversity of the catalogue presents our users with an even larger canvas from which to create, while giving independent artists the opportunity to connect with TikTok’s diverse community”.
Ever since China-based TikTok swallowed up Musical.ly and became a global phenomenon, the music industry’s marketers have been busy learning how to launch artists and tracks on the platform. Meanwhile their licensing colleagues at the labels, publishers and collecting societies have been trying to work out how to make music shared via the app legit.
Given how quickly social and sharing platforms rise to prominence these days – before being quickly hyped out by the next one – the music industry’s marketers and licensing teams need to respond ever more speedily to the latest fad. Spend too long on those licensing deals and you’ll miss out on the glory moment. Tick tock, tick tock.
