According to a new report, Facebook is offering major record labels and music publishers hundreds of millions of dollars so that the billion-plus users of its social network can legally add songs in the videos that they upload to the social network. This will eliminate the need for Facebook to comply with requests to take down videos that feature tracks that haven’t been licensed.
Video’s popularity on Facebook has grown exponentially over the past few years. Many of the videos that are uploaded to Facebook on a daily basis feature music that Facebook doesn’t have the rights to. It has a system in place through which rights holders can approach Facebook to have videos with the infringing material taken down
Music owners have reportedly been in discussions with Facebook about a potential solution. Facebook has reportedly promised to build a system that identifies and tags music that infringes on copyrights.
However, putting together something like this may take up to two years and that’s just too long. Facebook’s solution in the interim is to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to rights holders so that its users can easily add their tracks to their videos.
If this arrangement is reached between Facebook and music owners, it will also cement the social network’s position as a viable alternative to YouTube for online music. YouTube is currently the most popular online source for music and music videos.