In the wake of Universal Music Group's public spat with TikTok, which saw the label pull its full catalog from the video app earlier this year, the company is doubling down on its deal with Spotify. On Thursday, UMG announced an expansion of its strategic relationship with the streaming music service that will focus on "music discovery and social interaction" as well as improved fan experiences. Some of the new features that have been added in this edition of the U.S. include music videos.

While this is new, Spotify has, in fact, just recently announced its plans to offer music videos. Back in March, the company said it would test the feature in beta with 11 markets - at the time, that list did not include the U.S. Instead, the company said it was going to make the feature available in Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, the Netherlands, Poland, the Philippines, Sweden and the U.K.

Under the deal with UMG, U.S. subscribers will also have the capacity to stream music videos, as well as just streaming audio. The companies did not disclose how much of UMG's library would be available in video form, or which headline artists' videos they would carry.

Universal Music Publishing Group, however, houses some of the great talents on its roaster, such as Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Bad Bunny, The Weeknd, SZA, Drake, Harry Styles, Kendrick Lamar, Adele, and many others. That 4 million-song catalog was also wiped clean from TikTok when UMG was unable to renegotiate its deal with the video-sharing app.

But for those who want to start viewing videos now, it shall be conveniently accessed through a new "Switch to Video" in their app's Now Playing Screen. And should you flip your phone over to a landscape mode, the video will fill up the entire screen.

In its new features under the deal, some of them include promotional and social features that help artists build anticipation around their new releases. For instance, UMG artists will get opportunities on how they can share teasers regarding upcoming songs, while users will pre-save music before any new release.

Secondly, the companies will collaborate further on other features that are yet in the list, with further information on what is supposed to be issued. This, UMG said, in its announcement.

"UMG has always been an innovative partner on behalf of their artists and songwriters, helping us develop our experimental tools and adopting them early to further artists' creativity," said Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek in a statement. "The features ahead will empower artists and their teams to express themselves authentically, efficiently promote their work, and monetize it better," he added.

Timing is notable, of course, given the drama around TikTok, which not only faces a possible U.S. ban but also, more critically, could not agree on the use of UMG's music by the short-form video app. Consequently, TikTok was required to remove nearly 3 million songs owned or distributed by UMG by January 31, 2024. It then was obligated to remove other songs that featured compositions owned by UMG—that is, songs written or co-written by a songwriter signed to Universal Music Publishing Group.

Of course, UMG will still have a means of marketing its music to fans even if its artists lose the ability to market themselves on TikTok. Loss of UMG's music would have been a bigger blow to TikTok in years past, but the app has moved pretty far away from the lip-syncing and dancing videos toward vlogs and long-form content, not to mention its highly contentious e-commerce push.