🔵 What might a TikTok ban mean for music marketing?

Is this... *whispers it*... a good thing?

In a rare bout of unity, the US Govt has approved a measure forcing Bytedance to sell off TikTok to non-Chinese owners, or face a blanket ban across the country.

Now, one hurdle stands in the way in the shape of the Supreme Court, who many think might overturn the ban, citing freedom of speech.

I think as a non-US person, there are certainly questions one might wish to ask regarding the global dominance of US tech platforms, and this notion that - to the US Govt anyway - it is abhorrent that a Chinese company might gather data on billions of users, but totally fine for an American company to do the same.

But we digress. Let’s bring this back to Network Notes’ focal point: the music industry.

Fiscally, an awkward truth is that a TikTok ban in the US will hardly rock the bank balances of rights holders and labels worldwide. The reality is that it was always paying out a hopelessly small amount, such that on a spreadsheet it really feel into the “any other income” category.

As a cultural point of influence, however, TikTok has arguably become dominant. In doing so, one might also argue that it has led to strange trends in A&R and music release strategies. We’ve had artists being told they cannot release their new single until it goes viral on TikTok, and the site has become a magnet for A&R people looking to get a quick win by signing something already going viral.

It’s almost like everyone has been chasing quick wins, and the era of signing an unknown band to a three album deal and developing them is now anathema.

TikTok is not the only contributor to this situation; all social media has played its part through the years. I have memories of a label owner phoning me in a panic because Radio 1 wouldn’t playlist his artist unless they had 20,000 fans on Facebook. (Said artist went on to go platinum and now sell out arenas, further highlighting how daft this total reliance on data was.)

Personally then, I would quite welcome a ban on TikTok if it meant forcing labels in general to focus on alternative strategies when it comes to signing and marketing bands. Speaking honestly, no label Motive Unknown works with has ever suggested a band “has to” go viral on TikTok; I think they all recognise that if you do go viral, that’s great, but that it is not a strategy in itself.

But the absence of TikTok could just push the whole industry to consider new options, and look elsewhere for reach and connection. Whilst I have scoffed at Universal for one batting the “superfan” term around as if they’d just invented it, I do wonder if that focus, coupled with a need to find alternative routes to fans if TikTok dies, might not be a bad thing at all.

You could argue that is the optimistic view. A more pessimistic one could be that once again, YouTube and Instagram leap forth to attempt to replicate/replace what TikTok had. I really hope they don’t; TikTok emerged because these companies couldn’t do that, and I doubt much has changed since.

Of course, none of this may yet come to pass, if the Supreme Court acts as expected. However I can’t lie: contemplating a music landscape without TikTok excites me, as it might just exacerbate change, and right now, I feel change is needed.

Have a great evening,

D.

🎶 listening to “Sleepjunk” by Emperor’s New Clothes. Those with good memories may recall me writing about another version of this album, entitled Surreal Estate, that Trevor Jackson had shared. Subsequent to that I was contacted by Andy Knight, one of the founding members of ENC, who shared that the version he considers the definitive take is now available on Acid Jazz. Bottom line is that Sleepjunk is also fantastic, arguably even better, and eminently worth your ears. How this remained unreleased (in any form) is beyond me - it’s incredible. Read Andy’s take on the situation here.

📺 watching “Monkey Man | Official Trailer”. I can’t wait for this. Feels like more of the John Wick kind of vein, and I’m 100% here for it.

🤖 playing with walletless sign ins on Web3 sites. You may recall I said in the last edition of NN that wallet-free sign-in was about 12 months away? Turns out, it’s already here, so I’ve been testing it on a few sites. More on that soon.

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Stories from the Music Industry:

As landmark AI Act passes EU parliament vote, rightsholders urge ‘meaningful and effective’ enforcement of copyright

The EU law requires developers of “general purpose AI” (GPAI) models to keep track of and disclose what content is used in training. It further states that “any use of copyright protected content requires the authorization of the [rights holder] concerned, unless relevant copyright exceptions and limitations apply.” “Crucially, this appears to apply even if the training was carried out in another more lenient jurisdiction,” said Jonathan Coote, a music and AI lawyer at UK law firm Bray & Krais.

👆🏻Hot take: further proof that the EU is leading the way on tech regulation. What will be interesting to see next is just what wave of lawsuits this triggers.

Report: Indian music subscribers could double to 15m by 2026

The report notes that the eight million subscribers is still a very small proportion of India’s 185 million music-streaming users. It also offers a prediction: “The segment will grow to 15 million by 2026 if prices remain unchanged and the industry aligns on incentivizing users to pay,” claimed the report. “For further growth, the need to bundle music content, or price it at an affordable rate around INR1 per day, will be unavoidable.”

👆🏻Hot take: users up, ARPU down. Mixed news to receive.

Eventbrite's ToneDen warns users about broken smartlinks

“Due to unforeseen circumstances, ToneDen can no longer support SmartLinks directing to “.to” domains, and we have successfully secured a new domain (fanlink.tv) to ensure your campaigns run smoothly,” explained an email sent to users, and subsequently shared with Music Ally. However, that smooth process requires people to recreate their links using the new domain; update and relaunch any advertising campaigns; and if they are using FanLinks from a custom domain, update its DNS settings too.

👆🏻Hot take: this really highlights the perils of using smartlinks of any sort. When they go, your links - all of them, going back years - can be in jeopardy. Use your own domains where you can; at least then you can re-write those links if you need to.

Spotify adds music videos in some countries

Instead of searching for music videos directly or browsing videos in a separate section of the app, music videos can be started from the “Now Playing” screen. When you’re listening to a song that has a music video, you can tap on a button that says “Switch to Video” to … switch to video. The music video starts playing from the beginning (even if you were in the middle of the track) and replaces the album artwork. If you want to view the video in full screen, you can rotate your phone to landscape.

👆🏻Hot take: a nice feature but unlikely to get much use IMO. Spotify has repeatedly failed on the ‘lean in’ experience so I can’t see this changing that.

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Notable stories from the world of tech:

House votes to force TikTok owner ByteDance to divest or face US ban

The bill’s future is less certain in the Senate. Some Senate Democrats have publicly opposed the bill, citing freedom of speech concerns, and suggested measures that would address concerns of foreign influence across social media without targeting TikTok specifically. “We need curbs on social media, but we need those curbs to apply across the board,” Senator Elizabeth Warren said.

👆🏻Hot take: if the Senate does oppose this, it might prove to be one of the more contentious issues dividing US politics. Very curious to see what will happen.

Brave, Mozilla, Vivaldi see browser installs rise on iOS

Since Apple implemented a browser choice screen for iPhones earlier this month to comply with Europe's Digital Markets Act (DMA), Brave Software, Mozilla, and Vivaldi have seen a surge in the number of people installing their web browsers. It's an early sign that Europe's competition rules may actually … get this … enhance competition – an outcome that skeptics deemed unlikely.

👆🏻Hot take: well well - proof that Europe’s DMA is in fact bearing fruit in terms of forcing more competition. Great to see, and ideally a bellwether for further action against big tech.

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Need something else to read? Here you go:

Why Gen Z Is Ditching Dating Apps

Generally speaking, dating apps are losing their appeal with daters of all ages.

👆🏻Hot take: I take heart from this. It feels like further proof that people are potentially tiring of this belief/myth that tech is the answer to everything.

The Man Who Remembered Everything—and Thought It Was Normal

Charan Ranganath on the Famous Case of Solomon Shereshevsky

👆🏻Hot take: I feel like this man is my opposite. My brain can’t remember something that happened yesterday, much less any point beyond that.

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Exit Notes:

• Why not follow Motive Unknown on Instagram? It’s the best way to see what we’re working on - such as the IDLES album that is #1 this week 😁 💪🏻

• Huge thanks to both

  Bass, Mids, Tops and the Rest
  and
  Zen Sounds with Stephan Kunze
  for recommending Network Notes! I heartily recommend subscribing to both if you can.

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