With over 1bn downloads of its app to date, TikTok is a big deal in social media, with music being one of its key building blocks. What is most surprising about its new partnership with Sony in India is not that it has happened but rather that it has taken this long to happen.
For the song ‘Haaye Oye’ by QARAN and featuring Ash King, TikTok has created a special filter for the track that users can apply to clips of themselves as they lip sync along to the song. In brief it lets users add a heart-shaped puff of smoke to cover their mouths while hearts race up the screen and they mime along to the self-styled “love song of the year”.
Videos featuring the #haayeoye hashtags have been viewed over 190m times on TikTok, with the makers of the most creative videos being in with the chance of winning meet and greets and shoutouts from the act.
“The tremendous response to the video and the deep audience involvement with TikTok have resulted in some incredible numbers and quality of participation,” says Rohan Jha, the head of pop at Sony Music India. “The association is one of its kind – and exemplifies what an engaging content and an involved platform can do together.”
TikTok has also just launched its new Spotlight feature in South Korea and Japan – after a similar initiative in China – to give new acts a foot up by putting them in front of a massive global audience. It says it wants to help “discover and support the growth of independent artists”. Over the next five months, its panel of judges will whittle submissions down to between five and 10 acts, also drawing on data around which tracks are proving most popular with users of the app.
It is currently not clear if rightsholders and artists will be remunerated for the use of their music here, but the major labels are reported to be seeking higher payment rates as part of their licensing renegotiations with TikTok. Paying for music is one part of the conundrum for a platform like TikTok, but ensuring songs and artists don’t become a short-lived meme sensation is another thing entirely.
