26 March 2023 Wherever you turn, those people who say they love music and the artists are always trying to undercut what they receive in their never ending battle to pay less for the music they claim they love and can not do without. In the latest round of, "They love me, they love me not!", we see that the embattled ByteDance and it's highly scrutinized step child, Tik Tok subsidiary, are trying a pilot program in Australia to eliminate music from the major labels and artists to be made accessible to be Tik Tok influencers and users who post on the platform. They say it is to put pressure on the majors for the next round of negotiations for their fees on the music that their users can use to support their visual vignettes. The results of this ill gotten idea to hurt labels which in turn hurts artists are that their active users have fallen off when they implemented this stingy short sighted policy. I have an idea, why not cut some staff and your operating budgets for executive compensation and pay the damn artists the few fractional pennies they now get from the labels. If you think that creating music that connects with people and makes the visuals that much more powerful comes from novices and AI created entities, you do not know a damn thing about the creators and the works they provide you with. It does not apply in every case, but there are reasons that some bands and artists do not get signed and it's not always because the majors are squeezing them out. Maybe, just maybe, they are simply not good enough to cut it and get a deal and maybe, their music is just not that good. There must be a reason for user drop off if only the music being supplied to draw from by those who post has changed and it seems like quality and reliability are two issues to look at first! My history teacher once told me that you can't polish a turd and I guess you can't listen to one either! Have a great day and listen to some real music that stimulates and inspires you each and every day! "The number of people using TikTok in Australia fell after the company limited the music some people could put in their posts, results that suggest the company is still dependent on its access to popular songs. TikTok has been running a test in the country to see how important music is to users of its app, the fastest-growing social media service in the world. Some couldn’t access most music distributed by the three major record labels, while others were only missing smaller amounts, according to people familiar with the tests who asked not to be identified because the results aren’t public."