TikTok, which has had a measurable effect on music discovery, is now letting individual artists upload — and make money from — their songs directly in the app.
TikTok touted SoundOn as an “all-in-one platform” for music marketing and distribution. The platform lets artists upload their music directly to TikTok and earn royalties when TikTok creators use the music in their own videos.
The company, owned by Chinese internet giant ByteDance, said it is paying SoundOn creators 100% of the royalties for music in the first year and 90% after that, with no administrative fees. TikTok said artists will be compensated “based on how often your music is used in TikTok videos,” but didn’t say specifically how much it will pay per listen.
Artists participating in SoundOn can access the music tab in TikTok to show their music under their profile, and other users will be able to see their profile under the song page of each track.
In addition, SoundOn lets artists distribute their music to Resso (ByteDance’s music-streaming app) and third-party streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Joox and Pandora. Participants can view the list of available platforms and choose which services they would like to distribute their music to. SoundOn also provides audience insights and development support and assistance from an in-house team at TikTok, as well as promotional support through creator marketing on the TikTok platform.
“New artists and musical creators are a vibrant community within TikTok and SoundOn is designed to support them as they take the first steps in their career,” Ole Obermann, global head of music at TikTok, said in a statement. “We’re incredibly excited about how this will surface and propel new talent and how SoundOn will contribute to an increasingly diverse and growing global music industry.
TikTok said that after a beta-testing period SoundOn is now fully launched in the U.S., the U.K., Brazil and Indonesia. It cited creators including Muni Long, Games We Play (GWP), Abby Roberts and Chloe Adams as among the first to sign up with SoundOn.
Artists can register for SoundOn via this link.
