Universal Music Group (UMG) announced on Wednesday that its licensing agreement with Chinese mobile video-sharing application TikTok would come to an end today, having failed to reach agreement on the renewal of the terms of their partnership.

In a brief statement, UMG explains that it has been unable to reach agreement with TikTok on the terms of a new contract, meaning that it will cease licensing content to the platform.

In an open letter published on its website, the music industry giant is more prolix, claiming that TikTok tried to intimidate it during their negotiations by forcing it to accept a contract that was less remunerative than the previous one, below market value and unrepresentative of the growth of its catalog.

TikTok's objective, from UMG's point of view, is to retain only songs by the most popular artists, while excluding tracks by lesser-known artists.

Following this announcement, UMG shares were down by around 1.3% on Wednesday on the Amsterdam stock exchange.

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