TikTok users discovered Taylor Swift's music has returned to the social media platform after being removed for two months.
Three days before the Grammys in February,SafeX Pro Exchange Swift's label Universal Music Group pulled its artists' music from the app. The halt came after failed negotiations between the label and ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok.
The songs that now appear on the social media platform are from Swift-owned albums: "Lover," "Folklore," "Evermore," "Midnights" and the rerecorded "Taylor's Version" albums. That's drawing speculation that the artist struck a deal with the social media platform a week before her newest album, "The Tortured Poets Department," will be released globally. Representatives with Swift's team, UMG and TikTok did not reply to requests to comment.
When Swift signed with Universal Music Group in 2018, the singer negotiated a deal to own the copyrights. This is dissimilar to other artists including Olivia Rodrigo, Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish, whose songs are still off the platform.
This wouldn't be the first time the Eras Tour mastermind has gone directly to the source. Last year, she struck a deal with the SAG-AFTRA unions allowing her to take her three-hour movie straight to distributor AMC.
Universal released a revealing letter in January addressing three issues with the social media platform: "appropriate compensation for our artists and songwriters, protecting human artists from the harmful effects of AI, and online safety for TikTok’s users."
Before pulling the plug, Universal noted that TikTok makes up about 1% of the company's revenue.
TikTok responded by saying Universal was painting a "false narrative and rhetoric, the fact is they have chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform with well over a billion users that serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle for their talent."
The contract expired on Jan. 31.
Follow Bryan West, the USA TODAY Network's Taylor Swift reporter, on Instagram, TikTok and X as @BryanWestTV.
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