TikTok Owner ByteDance Has Supposedly Bought AI Music Startup Jukedeck

Parvati Misra - Aug 13, 2019

The parent company of TikTok – known as ByteDance – has allegedly bought a startup called Jukedeck which develops an AI-based music application.

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The parent company of TikTok – known as ByteDance – has allegedly bought a startup called Jukedeck which develops an AI-based music application. The startup created the application that can generate music itself and enable the users to modify the climax, length, and tempo.

bytedance-acquires-jukedeck — Along with the acquisition, users can gain more control of customizable tracks to attain a perfect tune.

Most of TikTok’s trending videos are based around songs that have been licensed – for example, Billie Eilish’s “bad guy” or Bag Raiders’ “Shooting Stars”. It is clear that Jukedeck’s application could potentially fit right in. Most short-videos from TikTok are created to perfectly sync with the beat of the music. Besides, users can gain more control of customizable tracks to attain a perfect tune.

Aside from helping users achieve their perfect beat, Jukedeck’s app could potentially help TikTok avoiding lots of licensing and monetary issues. All of TikTok’s songs had been paid by the company so that its users can use them on its platform, so in order to pay less attention towards the records labels, the company must rely on Jukedeck’s app to provide users with royalty-free tracks. This would also be good words for those content creators who prefer to move their videos off-platform, in which they can’t depend on TikTok’s licensing policies to secure their usage of trending songs.

bytedance-ai-music-startup — Jukedeck’s app could potentially help TikTok avoiding lots of licensing and monetary issues.

The unconfirmed purchase of Jukedeck was discovered because the company’s chief executive officer along with its workers has all listed ByteDance as their current employer on Linkedln. The company’s website is currently offline, with a message pointing out that "We can't tell you more just yet, but we're looking forward to continuing to fuel creativity using musical AI!"

Jukedeck’s CEO has listed himself as the director of the AI lab at ByteDance. It is known that ByteDance currently owns more than just TikTok, however, because of its extending interested in music, it would most likely see some of Jukedeck’s employees currently working with the more and more popular app.

There has not been any official confirmation from ByteDance on the matter.