Is TikTok getting into music?

Is TikTok getting into music?
FILE PHOTO: The TikTok logo is pictured outside the company’s U.S. head office in Culver City, California, U.S., September 15, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Blake

When TikTok came on the social media scene, its rise was meteoric. It changed the game as far as social media content is concerned, and now several platforms have implemented some copycat style of TikTok’s signature vertical video reel format, which includes the ability to sync audio (including, but not limited to, music) over that video.

But a recent filing shows that its aspirations in the music space might not be taking the backseat. ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, recently filed a trademark application with the US Patent and Trademark Office for “TikTok Music,” and it did the same in Australia last November. According to the filing, this theoretical service would let users do everything they do on traditional streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music.

This isn’t ByteDance’s first tango with a music platform either – it launched a music streaming platform a couple of years ago in Brazil, India and Indonesia called Resso, which has some of those same features. The company even uses TikTok to bring users over to Resso, allowing users to listen to full versions of a song they hear on TikTok, which keeps people in the ByteDance ecosystem.

It’s not totally clear if ByteDance is looking to do the same thing it did with Resso elsewhere in the world, if it’s looking to start something new entirely or if it’s just making sure it secures patents before other companies get to them. But what is clear is that if the company enters the music space, it has the potential to disrupt it in the same way it disrupted social media.