Social media behemoth, Facebook, is offering major music publishers and record labels hundreds of million of dollars to allow users to legally include songs in videos uploaded.
On the back of an influx of video posting on Facebook, a good portion of videos include music that the social network simply does not have the legal rights to. Under law, music rights owners are tasked with asking Facebook to take down the videos of infringing material.
Sources state music owners have been in talks with Facebook for months, as Facebook pledges to create a system which will identify and tag any music infringing on copyright. However, the system will take over two years to complete, which reportedly is too much time for either party to wait.
Facebook is said to be eager to ink a deal as soon as possible, in a bid to stop frustrating; users who are forced to take down videos, partners, and advertisers.
The announcement comes on the back of Facebook’s recent news which unveiled ‘Watch’, a video hub which will include a suite of original series. Watch will be Facebook’s bid to combat Youtube for advertising revenue around video content. Chief Executive, Mark Zuckerberg, also notes that video will drive the company forward in the coming years. Zuckerberg expects video sharing to exceed photo sharing in the future.
Executives from the music industry hope Facebook’s move to license songs for user-generated videos will put pressure on Youtube to tighten up its process.
The soon-to-be revenue from Facebook into the music industry follows a period of significant growth for the sector, namely from on-demand streaming services as Apple Music and Spotify. Warner Music Group revealed a 13% increase in sales within the most recent fiscal quarter. Data states global music sales reportedly increased 5.9% in 2016.
