Facebook and Universal Music Group have got into a global, multi-year agreement under which the latter becomes the first major music company to license its recorded music and publishing catalogues for video and other social experiences across Facebook, Instagram and Oculus.
As more and more Facebook users have included music or videos in their posts in recent years, Facebook has been in negotiations with music rights holders for many months in an attempt to resolve the situation.
According to a press release, the partnership will allow users to upload and share videos that contain licensed music and personalize their music experiences on Facebook, Instagram and Oculus.
Eventually, functionality will expand to enable access to a vast library of music across a series of social features; the agreement “is intended to serve as a foundation for a strategic partnership roadmap that will deliver new music-based experiences online.”
Going forward, the companies will experiment together to introduce new music-based products to these Facebook platforms, including Messenger, with the goal of developing the next generation of music products to engage social consumers.
The move comes just two days after Universal announced a global partnership with YouTube, which has long had a contentious relationship with the music industry over its relatively low royalty payments; sources say that agreement includes components that eventually will help drive consumers toward the platform’s paid music service.
