TikTok rival adds to its music rights library

In a move to bolster its ever-growing rights library, Kuaishou 快手(‘quick hand’) has announced a global licensing agreement with AMRA. The deal will see Kuaishou gain access to AMRA’s vast catalogue of music rights. This comes as Kuaishou continues its battle against rival Douyin (TikTok) for market share in the Chinese short video app space.  This agreement with AMRA extends an impressive list of license deals with music rights companies that also includes Warner Music Group, Believe, and Tunecore.

AMRA is one of the world’s largest music rights organizations, representing over 650,000 artists and songwriters from around the globe. This deal allows Kuaishou performance and mechanical rights to AMRA’s entire catalogue of music.  AMRA is a first of its kind global digital music collection society designed to maximize music royalty value for its members in the digital age – providing the highest level of transparency and efficiency for its clients. With this addition Kuaishou will now be able to offer its users a wider selection of songs to choose from when creating their videos.

Although number 2 in China, Kuaishou remains one of the world’s largest social and short video platforms, boasting an average of over a billion monthly users. It topped Google play and Apple’s App store’s most downloaded list in eight countries in 2020. User time spent on the platform has increased by 225% since 2019, according to AppAnnie’s State of Moblie 2022 Report. Kwai and SnackVideo, two of Kuaishou’s applications used outside of China, are among the most popular apps in Latin America, the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia.

Tony Qiu, Head of Kuaishou’s International Business said, “Partnering with cutting edge technology players like AMRA differentiates Kuaishou from other platforms in terms of value provided to content creators globally.”

Tomas Ericsson, CEO of AMRA said, “We are very pleased to partner with Kuaishou and excited by their fast-growing social and video platform. Our commitment to our songwriter clients to provide them with new and powerful collection opportunities on a global scale is what AMRA was built for. We look forward to working with the team at Kuaishou and deliver more value back to our songwriter clients”