Facebook to allow users legally include copyrighted songs in uploaded videos

FBtutorial.com | Facebook News — We gathered Facebook is offering major record labels and music publishers hundreds of millions of dollars to allow users legally include copyrighted songs in their uploaded videos.

This is good news for Facebook Users who love sharing self-recorded videos that may sometimes contain copyrighted audio from their favorite songs, with friends on the social networking platform.

The posting and viewing of videos on Facebook has exploded in recent years, and many of the videos feature music to which Facebook doesn’t have the rights to host on their platform.

The rate at which videos are being uploaded to Facebook has also increased the rise of copyright holders who have been filing tons of reports asking Facebook to take down videos with their copyrighted works.

Facebook Acquiring Music Rights for User Uploaded Videos

According to a Bloomberg report, music owners have been negotiating with Facebook for months in search of a solution to the issue, and Facebook promised to build a system to identify and tag music that infringes copyrights. However, such a setup is estimated to take as long as two years to complete, which is too long for both sides to wait, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing details that aren’t public.

Facebook is said to be eager in making a deal now so that it no longer frustrates users by taking down their videos due to hosting of infringing materials and to avoid the prospect of legal headaches from their advertisers.

The latest discussions will ensure Facebook members can upload video with songs just as it’s rolling out ‘Watch‘, a new hub for video, and funding the production of original series. Facebook is attempting to attract billions of dollars in additional advertising revenue and challenge YouTube as the largest site for advertising-supported video on the web.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on the company’s second-quarter earnings call that for the next few years video will drive Facebook’s business and determine how well the company performs. He also told investors to expect the company to continue to increase its investment in the format, as it sees video sharing overtaking text and photo sharing in the future.

While Facebook can still pursue professional music videos, the company chose to prioritize clearing user-generated material. Most of the videos being uploaded to Facebook are by individuals (as opposed to media companies).

Tamara Hrivnak, a former YouTube executive, has been leading copyright negotiations for Facebook since joining the company earlier this year. Also a former executive at Warner/Chappell Music Publishing, Hrivnak is also reportedly working with Facebook on acquiring music rights from holders.