Facebook is looking for a new way to expand it’s revenue by allowing users to legally include songs in their uploaded videos. The social media giant plans to offer record labels and music publishers hundreds of millions of dollars in order to acquire theses rights.
The amount of users uploading their own content and videos on Facebook has skyrocketed in the past few years. Many users however, have had their videos taken down due to copyright infringement leading to frustration among the Facebook community. In order for their videos to stay up Facebook would need to become rights holders of many music labels.
According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg the next few years video will drive Facebook’s business and determine how well the company performs. Investors were told that the company plans to increase its revenue through video sharing.
Sources say that music owners have been working with Facebook on a solution for the copyright infringement issue. Since making a system that would automatically identify a violating video would take too long (years to complete), buying the rights to the music has become the solution.
Buying music rights is a huge boost for the music industry. Universal and Warner Music Group have both seen a 13-15 percent increase in sales in the recent fiscal quarter. The increase has mainly been attributed to Spotify and Apple’s growing consumer base.
Facebook attempts to rival Youtube with video content. Less videos being taken down for copyright infringement equals more video content on Facebook. More advertising revenue is another goal that is on Facebook’s to do list. It seeks to be an even bigger outlet for promotion and to pressurize Youtube into managing it’s music rights better.
Facebook’s adventurous move could very well make it a more dominating platform. Although it has not made the purchase negotiations are underway and users can soon hope to upload more personalized and creative videos without difficulty.
