TikTok to charge $10 for each delivery it considers a "Hidden Recording"

TikTok is launching its "Problematic Delivery Penalty Program" in November 2026, a penalty programme for deliveries that break its rules or are not authorised. At the start it will only apply to "Hidden Recordings". The fee is $10 per delivery identified as such, and the first list of charges will cover what TikTok receives during November.

How much it costs and when it is charged

According to TikTok, each delivery is charged only once, not every month. If the same song is sent again as a new delivery, with different unique identifiers, and TikTok also flags it as a hidden recording, a new fee may apply.

The reference month is counted by the day TikTok receives the delivery: from 00:00:00 UTC on the first day of the month to 23:59:59 UTC on the last. There will be no retroactive charges. The November penalty report will arrive in the second half of December, together with the November financial reports.

The financial report does not change: it keeps its normal values and the fees appear in a separate report, in TSV format. TikTok explains that, to work out what to invoice, you need to subtract the total of that penalty report from the amount payable in the financial report. If the fee is higher than what TikTok owes, the remaining balance carries over to the following month.

Fourteen days to appeal from when the delivery appears in the queue

Flagged deliveries appear in a queue called "Problematic Deliveries", inside MediaMatch, TikTok's tool for its partners. A 14-day window starts there:

• If you appeal within the window and TikTok approves the appeal, the delivery does not appear in the report and nothing is charged.
• If you appeal within the window and TikTok does not approve it, the delivery appears in the report for the month it was delivered and the fee is charged.
• If you do not appeal, TikTok considers its decision accepted and the fee is charged all the same.

An example from TikTok: a delivery received on November 30 has until December 14. If the appeal is rejected, or there is no appeal, the charge will go in the November report.

After the 14 days you can still appeal to recover the rights. If TikTok approves it, the PGC (the platform's own content) rights, the UGC (user videos) rights, or both are restored from that point on, and the song can generate usage again. The fee already applied is not refunded. The final decision is made by TikTok's rights management team.

What an artist or a label can do

TikTok's notice asks its partners to review the problematic deliveries queue and to make sure whoever handles it knows the review and appeal process. An independent artist does not have access to that queue: whoever delivers the catalogue to TikTok does. What you can do is make sure each release arrives with its data filled in correctly (ISRC, UPC, artist and title), which are the ones that appear in the penalty report, and let us know as soon as possible if anything in your catalogue looks wrongly classified.

TikTok's notice does not detail what criteria it uses to decide that a delivery is a hidden recording, nor does it give metadata recommendations. For that reason we cannot promise a list of steps that will avoid the charge. We also do not know whether TikTok will later extend the programme to other infringements: it says that, at the start, it only applies to this one.

How we do it

We are direct providers to TikTok, along with Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Amazon, and our copyright team handles claims and rights disputes on YouTube, Meta and TikTok. If you receive something you do not understand about one of your songs on TikTok, tell us about the case and we will review it with the platform.

Cover photo: dotigabrielf on Pixabay