TikTok Patents Music Streaming App, Could Resso Be?

TikTok patents a music streaming app. (photo: doc. pixabay)

JAKARTA - Considering how intertwined music discovery is with TikTok, it's no surprise that the company is now launching its own music streaming app. The patent filings found by Insider suggest that TikTok is working on just that.

TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, filed a trademark application with the US Patent and Trademark Office for “TikTok Music” in May 2022.

According to the filing, the service will allow users to buy, play, share and download music. It will also allow users to create, share and recommend playlists, comment on music, as well as live stream audio and video. ByteDance filed for the "TikTok Music" trademark in Australia last November.

ByteDance already has experience with streaming music. In 2020, ByteDance launched its music streaming app, Resso, in India, Brazil and Indonesia.

Resso has some of the same features described in the "TikTok Music" archive, such as the ability to create playlists, share songs on social media, and interact with the app's community.

ByteDance even uses TikTok to bring existing users to Resso. According to a report from The Information, the TikTok app in Brazil is equipped with a button that directs users to Resso so they can listen to the full version of the song they are interested in. This is a move that helps users stay within the ByteDance ecosystem.

The Information also reports that Resso had more than 40 million monthly users across India, Brazil and Indonesia as of November 2021, this number is likely to continue 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 is planning on developing a music streaming app based on the Resso framework, or if it will come up with something completely different.

Just as TikTok has had a huge impact on the way social media sites operate, it's possible that music streaming apps with TikTok ties could change the music streaming industry, forcing the service to adapt.