TikTok’s SoundOn Launches In Australia

BRISBANE, Australia — TikTok launches SoundOn in Australia, a tool that allows creators to upload their music directly, and get paid.

The new platform helps independent emerging artists navigate its service, upload music and get paid for its use, market and promote themselves on TikTok and distribute their music to outside DSPs.

SoundOn initially went live in Brazil and Indonesia in early 2022, then went out in the U.S. and U.K., also last year, before arriving this week for Australian users.

With SoundOn, TikTok becomes a music distributor, with a service that allows its users to upload their music to the likes of Spotify or Apple Music, in partnership with a third-party distributor.

Free to join in Australia, SoundOn promises to pay 100% of royalties to music creators in the first year, and offers help and advice from a dedicated, locally-based made up of a roster of homegrown music industry veterans, in addition to “TikTok music experts.”

SoundOn “can also distribute to other music platforms,” reads a statement, without identifying which streaming services or DSPs are currently on board.

The new offering at us.soundon.global or soundon.global opens for business in Australia with signings including Ashwarya, Aleksiah, The Drax Project, Roy Bing, Suzi Sings, Xanu, Kate Gill, Mikalya Pasterfield and CXLOE.

TikTok is a real hit with Gen Z in Australia, and is already a more popular social platform than Twitter among all internet users in these parts, according to data published in the Digital 2022 Australia report.

In separate news, TikTok confirms it is “running a test” in Australia over the coming weeks to analyze “how music is accessed and used on the platform.”

The results of those tests, observers say, could empower TikTok when the time comes to negotiate with its major label content partners on new terms.

“Not all music is included in this test and we do not expect it to impact everyone on TikTok,” reads a statement from the ByteDance-owned business. “While the test is underway, we expect that some of our users will not be able to access our full music and sounds library. For more than half of our community there will be no change to their experience and the test will not impact them.”