The global music scene gains a new dimension: TikTok officially launches SoundOn in Germany. Not just another digital service — but an attempt to transform the very structure of the music business, especially for independents and platform-native artists.
SoundOn lets musicians upload tracks for free, distribute them across major streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, etc.), and monetize directly — bypassing labels. Artists get 100% royalties from TikTok and 100% from other platforms in year one (then 90%). A radical shift in industry entry logic.
Since its 2022 debut, SoundOn covers the U.S., UK, Brazil, Indonesia — and now Germany. Over 1.1 million artists have registered, with success stories: TikTok-native musicians entering charts and signing contracts — with labels, sponsors, NFT platforms, and brands.
For Germany, the launch is especially significant: the country is a top-4 global music market. Strong in traditional labels, but also in producers, indie labels, music tech startups, metaverse and Web3 distribution. SoundOn embeds TikTok deeper into the nation’s music infrastructure.
In the context of EU copyright law and TikTok’s tense relations with majors (e.g., Universal Music), SoundOn is also a bid to build a vertically integrated music ecosystem. TikTok becomes not just a promo space, but an infrastructural player — distributing, monetizing, and analyzing music in real time.
For music startups, platforms, and indie labels this is both opportunity and threat: access to new channels/audiences without barriers — but at the cost of TikTok taking margin and reshaping ownership structures and user habits. The competition shifts — not between artists, but between algorithms and platforms.
In parallel, TikTok is pushing its in-house music tools — from sound analytics to generative music. The looming question: will artists remain authors, or become producers of algorithm-optimized content? And when will TikTok itself turn into a label?
