Facebook will now pay creators and artists whose music appears in video content.
On Monday, Facebook's parent company Meta released a new feature that enables musical artists to monetize videos that feature their music. The move to establish Music Revenue Sharing is indicative of Meta's commitment to copyright infringement as it incentivizes creators to remain within the legal bounds of music use on Facebook. Now, artists such as Post Malone, Tove Lo, and more can earn from those who use their music in videos.
Facebook's Music Revenue Sharing Feature Splits Earnings Between Creators and Music Rights Owners
According to The Verge, Facebook is providing creators with access to a library of music licensed by Meta. The way Facebook's Music Revenue Sharing works is that creators will receive a 20% cut of the ad earnings while the rest will be split between Meta and the music rights holders. However, the new feature requires that the videos must be at least a minute long and that the music cannot be the primary purpose of the video. The feature is also not applicable to Facebook Reels.
Unlike Facebook's music revenue sharing feature, YouTube similarly offers access to a licensed music library, but it does not include chart-toppers, instead offering background music. Users who use music without permission are required to attend "Copyright School" or else have their channels terminated, while others can have their videos published but have the copyright holder earn the ad revenue without the creator getting any cut from the earnings.
Meta's announcement on Monday said that Facebook's Music Revenue Sharing feature will let creators use music from artists such as Post Malone, Tove Lo, Grupo La Cumbia, Leah Kate, Bicep and more.
Meta Attempts to Minimize Conflict with the Music Industry
Facebook's Music Revenue Sharing is made possible by the Rights Manager, a Meta-developed tool for video, audio and image-matching tool that was designed to help content owners protect their rights and manage their content. For creators to use Facebook's Music Revenue Sharing feature, they must be eligible for in-stream ads and meet the social network's monetization eligibility standards, TechCrunch reported.
Meta's move to enable Music Revenue Sharing on Facebook comes at the heels of two cases of conflict between the company and the music industry. Just this weekend, music publisher Kobalt announced to its writers and partners that its licensing deal with Meta expired, causing them to pull 700,000 songs off Facebook and Instagram, including tracks from The Weeknd and Paul McCartney.
According to Music Business Worldwide, Kobalt did not say why they were not renewing the licensing deal or pulling out the music but confirmed that "fundamental differences remained that we were not able to resolve in your best interests." Last week, Swedish music company Epidemic Sound filed a lawsuit against Facebook, claiming that 1,000 tracks had been uploaded to and used in Meta's platforms without a license.
Epidemic Sound said that Meta's Original Audio and Reels Remix "encourage and allow its users to steal Epidemic's music from another user's posted video content and use in their own subsequent videos, resulting in exponential infringements on Meta's platform."
