Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and BTS' music could soon be available for videos on Facebook

• Facebook is reportedly poised to take on YouTube as it looks to finalise music licencing deals with Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, and Sony Music Entertainment.
  
• Having music rights for videos would put Facebook in the league to compete with Google’s video streaming service, YouTube.
  
• Aside from trying to attract more users and increasing the stickiness of the platform, more videos will also give Facebook a larger piece of the ad revenue pie.
  

In Facebook’s mission to stay relevant and push on its video platform, the company is reportedly in the final stages of acquiring the rights to music from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group.

What this means is that if you use a Rihanna song in the background of your video, it won’t get taken down for copyright infringement. It will also mean that Facebook will now be going up against the likes of Google’s video streaming behemoth, YouTube — the second biggest search engine after Google, especially in India.

Aside from getting new users onboard and increasing the stickiness of the social networking platform, having videos become mainstream will finally give Facebook a piece of the digital video advertising pie.

Bloomberg reports that the partnership is likely to be announced soon.

Taking on YouTube
During Facebook’s earnings call on Thursday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained that Facebook is trying to expand its video features to create a community of fans and supporters — not just create a platform that’s gunning for views.

“Something that is just a lot harder to do on YouTube or a Twitch or other products like that,” he said. Between Universal, Sony and Warner, Facebook will have access to more than 60% of the music in the global market.


The boost from having more music available to creators will help Facebook accelerate its video monetisation options and bring in a little more moolah. Last year alone, YouTube brought in over $15 billion in gross advertising revenue.

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