Viral short-video app TikTok is setting up an artist discovery program in partnership with 21 record companies, including major names in the industry like Universal Music, Sony Music, and Warner Music.
The program, TikTok Spotlight, is a contest with an open call for budding musicians to upload their works onto TikTok’s platform. The songs on Spotlight can be used by TikTok’s users as background music for their videos.
A panel of 26 producers, songwriters, and singers will choose five to ten submissions in Japan and South Korea as the winners of Spotlight, taking into account the popularity of songs by looking at their usage rates over the next five months.
Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that record labels, including the three labels mentioned earlier, were asking ByteDance, the company behind TikTok and Douyin, for more royalties as the deals between the record companies and the company are expiring soon.