TikTok's new feature lets you share from Spotify and Apple Music
TikTok will now let you share songs directly from Apple Music and Spotify to the platform.
Announced by the company on Thursday, the new "Share to TikTok" feature gives users of music streaming platforms the ability to share tracks, podcasts, or even audiobooks straight to TikTok.
The option to "Share to TikTok" will now appear when you go to share a song or album on Spotify or Apple Music. You can either post your selected track straight to the TikTok feed, using Photo Mode or the green screen feature to appear in the video steaming with hot takes. Or you can share straight to TikTok DMs to send it to your friends, where clicking on the song will open it in either Apple Music or Spotify.
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Amazon Music, Tidal, YouTube Music, and other music streaming platforms were not named in the announcement.
The feature is meant to be a complementary addition to TikTok's "Add to Music App" launched in November last year, which lets users tap the button next to the name of the song playing in a video and add it to their chosen music streamer.
"Today's launch of 'Share to TikTok' is the latest example of our ongoing commitment to support music discovery and artist promotion in partnership with music streaming services," said Ole Obermann, global head of music business development, in a press statement.
"Since its launch, 'Add To Music App' has already been responsible for hundreds of millions of track saves and billions of streams on our partner music streaming services. 'Share to TikTok' takes the user experience full circle, and will be an amazing way of promoting artists and tracks to the TikTok community."
It won't be this straightforward with every share, however. Major labels have different licensing agreements in place with TikTok; for example, in May, TikTok and Universal Music Group (UMG) reached a "multi-dimensional" deal to put their artists back on the platform after the label pulled its whole catalogue. Warner Music Group (WMG) and Sony Music Entertainment have their own deals with TikTok.
Meanwhile, indie labels have their own deals. When TikTok's licensing deal with the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA), which represents a number of indies, expired in April, the NMPA said it would not renew its license with TikTok. Indie nonprofit label licensing group Merlin is threatening to remove a large chunk of its catalogue from TikTok.
So, while sharing music to your TikTok DMs seems pretty safe as it's just a link, sharing to your feed might be more complicated.
The news also comes after TikTok said it would be pulling the plug on TikTok Music by November. The music streaming service never made it to the U.S., and had debuted in Brazil and Indonesia in July last year.
Shannon Connellan is Mashable's UK Editor based in London, formerly Mashable's Australia Editor, but emotionally, she lives in the Creel House. A Tomatometer-approved critic, Shannon writes about entertainment, tech, social good, science, culture, and Australian horror.
