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ByteDance’s music app Resso offers hints about TikTok Music’s launch • ZebethMedia

TikTok owner ByteDance is moving towards a launch its music streaming service TikTok Music, rivaling Spotify and YouTube Music, reports have stated. In addition to recent discoveries of TikTok Music trademarks in global markets, ZebethMedia has now discovered newly added references regarding a “TikTok Music” service in the Resso streaming app, owned by TikTok’s parent ByteDance. The code appears to suggest that user activity may sync between the Resso app and TikTok Music, and specifically refers to a “music.tiktok.com” URL, as well. ByteDance today already operates the streaming music service named Resso in markets including in India, Brazil, and Indonesia. But the references to TikTok Music in the Resso app hint that the China-based company might sync user activity between the two apps. In addition, the code refers to TikTok Music as part of TikTok. Image Credits: ZebethMedia It’s unclear whether TikTok will test its music service under the Resso moniker globally, or launch a separate app for that. The company has also launched a site “music.tiktok.com” for certain regions — references of which were also found in the code — suggesting that the service may launch first in Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Malaysia, and Singapore. You can’t download the client yet, and if you try to click on the download button a pop will tell you “We are working hard to bring you the desktop version. Check back soon.” The mobile version of the site suggests that the download button will take users to the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. Image Credits: TikTok The site’s terms of service also uses the brand “TikTok Music,” we found. “Welcome to TikTok Music! TikTok Music, one of our Services defined under the TikTok Terms, is a music streaming service that allows users to listen to music,” the term page reads. Many of the pages on the site have placeholder text indicating that it is still under development. This could mean that ByteDance is preparing to start testing the service in certain geographies. The code references aren’t the only hints that a TikTok Music brand is in the works. The company has also recently registered verified “TikTok Music”-branded social media handles on Twitter and Instagram, as well as region-specific handles for areas like Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, and Asia, and countries like Singapore, and Malaysia. These accounts have posted similar creative teasers saying “Welcome to a new way to experience music,” “discover your new favorite song,” and “stay tuned” between April and May. These moves fall in line with information a former ByteDance employee told ZebethMedia earlier this year. They told us ByteDance had previously considered bringing the Resso service to more markets under a “TikTok Music” branding. More specifically, it had been weighing launches in mature markets like the U.K. and Australia, the source had said. Last month, The Wall Street Journal also reported that ByteDance was in talks with notable music labels to expand its streaming service to global markets. A TikTok Music service would make sense for ByteDance as many hit songs first become viral on TikTok and drive streams on Spotify and YouTube. A report released by the company last year suggested that 175 songs that trended on the short-video platform ended up on the Billboard 100 chart. If ByteDance launches its own music service, it could drive these streams toward its own app — whether that’s Resso or TikTok Music — allowing it to earn advertising and subscription revenue. ByteDance has shown interest in furthering its music investments. Earlier this year, it launched its own music distribution solution called SoundOn. With this service, the company pays 100% royalties to the artists for the first year, then 90% royalties from the second year. The platform also allows artists to drop teasers on TikTok to get early feedback. TikTok Music’s popularity will depend its ability to score deals with major labels, allowing it to offer users access to popular songs in addition to the original songs that launch first on TikTok. This could prove difficult. In September, Sony Music pulled its catalog from Resso, resulting in user backlash, for example. TikTok didn’t reply to requests for comment on this story.

They’re not going to ban TikTok (but…) • ZebethMedia

We’ve been hearing for years how TikTok hoovers up data globally and presents it to its parent company in China, and potentially thence to the powers that be. But despite renewed calls today from FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, the popular app is very unlikely to be outright banned. That doesn’t mean it will be allowed to carry on with impunity, though. Commissioner Carr’s opinion appeared in an interview with Axios, during which he stated that he doesn’t believe “anything other than a ban” would be sufficient to protect Americans’ data from collection by Chinese companies and authorities. (To be clearhis is him expressing his own position, not the FCC’s; I asked two others at the agency for comment and have not received any response.) This isn’t the first time Carr has voiced this idea. After BuzzFeed News reported data improprieties implied by leaked internal communications, he wrote in June to Apple and Google calling the app an “unacceptable national security risk” and asking the companies to remove it from their app stores. They didn’t, and now it’s back to the question of federal action — first pondered by the Trump administration, which despite many actions restricting China’s reach in the U.S. never managed to get a lock on TikTok. The reason for that is pretty simple: it would be political self-sabotage. TikTok is not just a wildly popular app, it’s the liferaft to which a generation that abandoned the noble ships Facebook, Instagram, and soon Twitter have clung for years. And the reason why is that American companies haven’t come close to replicating TikTok’s feat of algorithmic addiction. TikTok’s success in gluing Gen Z to their phones isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing — that’s a different discussion. Taking as a given its place in the zeitgeist, however, it makes a ban politically risky for multiple reasons. First, it would be tremendously unpopular. The disaffected-youth vote is supremely important right now, and any President, Senator, or Representative who supports such a ban would be given extreme side-eye by the youth. Already out of touch with technology and the priorities of the younger generation, D.C. would now also be seen as fun police. Whether that would drive voters to the other side or just cause them to not vote, there aren’t any good outcomes. Banning TikTok does not secure votes and that is fatal before you even start thinking about how to do it. (Not to mention it kind of looks like the government intervening to give flailing U.S. social media companies a boost.) Second, there isn’t a clear path to a ban. The FCC can’t do it (no jurisdiction). Despite the supposed national security threat, the Pentagon can’t do it (ditto). The feds can’t force Apple and Google to do it (First Amendment). Congress won’t do it (see above). An executive order won’t do it (too broad). No judge will do it (no plausible case). All paths to bans are impractical for one reason or another. Third, any effective ban would be a messy, drawn-out, contested thing with no guarantee of success. Imagine that somehow the government forced Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their stores and remotely wipe or disable it on phones. No one likes that look — the companies look too weak and too strong, letting the feds push them around and then showing off their power to reach out and touch “your” device. An IP-based ban would be easily circumvented but also set another unpleasant censorship precedent that ironically would make the U.S. look a lot more like China. And even should either or both of these be attempted, they’d be opposed in court by not just ByteDance but companies from around the world that don’t want the same thing to happen to them if they get a hit and the government doesn’t like it. For those reasons and more, an outright ban by law, decision or act of god is a very unlikely thing. But don’t worry: there are other tools in the toolbox. If you can’t beat ’em, bother ’em Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / ZebethMedia The government may not be able to kick TikTok out of the country, but that doesn’t mean they have to be nice about letting them stay. In fact, it’s probable that they’ll do their best to make it downright unpleasant. The company and service exists in something of a loophole, regulator-wise, like most social media companies. The addition of Chinese ownership is both a complicator and an opportunity. It’s more complicated because the U.S. can’t directly affect ByteDance’s policies. On the other hand, as a “foreign adversary,” China’s ascendancy over private industry is a legitimate national security concern and policy can be shaped around that. This involves various more independent agencies that are free to set rules within their remits — the FCC can’t, in this case, make a case. But what about the Commerce Department? Homeland Security? The FTC? For that matter, what about states like California? Rule-making agencies have a free hand — and like tacit Congressional backing — to extend their own fiefdoms to the edges of TikTok, with national security acting as a catch-all reason. If Commerce adds “connected software applications” to supply chain security rules as it has proposed, suddenly the data coming and going through the app is arguably under its protection. (This would all be shown in various definitions and filings at the time of the rulemaking.) What if TikTok’s source code, user data, and other important resources were subject to regular audits to make sure they complied with cross-border data supply chain rules? Well, it’s a pain in the neck for ByteDance because it needs to scour its code base to make sure it isn’t giving too much away. Having to prove that it handles data the way it says it does, to the satisfaction of U.S. authorities given free reign to be picky — not pleasant at all. And that’s just from a relatively quick rule

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