TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, filed a trademark application with the US Patent and Trademark Office for “TikTok Music” in May. According to the filing, the service would allow users to buy, play, share and download music. It will also allow users to create, share and recommend playlists, comment on music, and live stream audio and video. ByteDance has already applied for a ‘TikTok Music’ trademark in Australia last November. ByteDance already has experience with music streaming. In 2020, ByteDance launched a music streaming app, Resso, in India, Brazil and Indonesia. Resso has some of the same features described in the “TikTok Music” file, such as the ability to create playlists, share songs on social media, and interact with the app’s community. ByteDance is even using TikTok to bring existing users to Resso. According to a report from The Information, the TikTok app in Brazil comes with a button that redirects users to Resso so they can listen to the full version of a song they’re interested in, a move that helps keep users within the ecosystem ByteDance. The Information also reports that Resso had over 40 million monthly users in India, Brazil and Indonesia as of November 2021, a number that is likely to grow. Earlier this year, a report from Insider revealed that Resso’s monthly active users grew by 304 percent between January 2021 and January 2022 in India alone, in contrast to Spotify’s 38 percent growth in the country over the same time period. It’s unclear if ByteDance plans to develop a music streaming app based on the Resso framework or if it will come up with something else entirely. Just as TikTok has had a profound effect on the way social networking sites operate, it’s possible that a music streaming app with TikTok connections will change the music streaming industry, forcing services to adapt.
