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Facebook Offers Hundreds of Millions of Dollars for Music Rights (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the there's-a-price dept.

Facebook is offering major record labels and music publishers hundreds of millions of dollars so the users of its social network can legally include songs in videos they upload, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. From the report: The posting and viewing of video on Facebook has exploded in recent years, and many of the videos feature music to which Facebook doesn't have the rights. Under current law, rights holders must ask Facebook to take down videos with infringing material. Music owners have been negotiating with Facebook for months in search of a solution, and Facebook has promised to build a system to identify and tag music that infringes copyrights. Yet such a setup will 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 eager to make a deal now so that it no longer frustrates users, by taking down their videos; partners, by hosting infringing material; or advertisers, with the prospect of legal headaches. 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.

53 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Business Opportunity by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If I were one of the major media companies I would let sites like Facebook use it for free if they would run some scanning software that detects the use of copyrighted works I own and puts a button that people can click to buy the song on Amazon, iTunes, or a number of other different marketplaces. There have been a lot of times where I've randomly heard some piece of music that was embedded in a video or somewhere else and was interested in listening to more of it and potentially buying it. I would imagine that there are a lot of people who might make impulse purchases like that for a $.99 song if you make it really easy for them to purchase it.

    I don't understand all of these companies in a rush to try to put a stop to people who want to do free marketing for them.

    1. Re:Business Opportunity by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's your problem: As a regular human, all you can see is a business opportunity. Big corporations don't think like that, think in terms of control. The thing is, even if they think or know that that particular approach isn't the most lucrative one, they do know that nobody ever went broke keeping a tight leash on their IP.

      --
      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    2. Re:Business Opportunity by guruevi · · Score: 1

      The music labels don't want you to buy the song on Amazon or iTunes, they want you to pay $1M for the right to use it in your 'work' AND charge the end-user $10 every time they hear it.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    3. Re:Business Opportunity by sit1963nz · · Score: 1

      And how long will it be before someone writes a browser plugin (or an App) that allows you to capture that song for FREE.

      People are already doing that with Youtube.

      "Free Marketing" is almost worthless, Sound is already "OFF" by default on my machine and I run ad blockers as well as an extensive host file. And this is a growing tend. Browsers are comping with the ability of have sound off individualized for web sites as well as autoplay videos being stopped by site.

      Cash is King, especially when pitted against vague promises of future earnings that may never eventuate.

    4. Re:Business Opportunity by sit1963nz · · Score: 1

      All those physical items take time, materials, skill, etc etc etc to replicate (mug, pen, picture, etc) Music on the other hand can be copied for free, and where another artist has used their time, money and skill to re-record the track, both they and the original artist get financially compensated via licensing.

    5. Re:Business Opportunity by sheph · · Score: 1

      The music industry as a whole has changed. The big corporations haven't figured that out yet. All they know is they're hemorrhaging the money they used to make and they don't know why. For years the game was simple. Find decent artist, preferably young and exploitable, sign artist into lopsided contract in return for putting up capital to record, and pay radio to play the crap out of single until millions of copies sold. If artist pisses you off, air play stops and artist goes away. They had control of every aspect of the game and made billions.

      Now anyone with garage band can make an album, market it for free on social media, and make all their money off of shows, t-shirt sales, and the like. Radio is pretty much dead. Streaming services are leveraging back catalogs for music companies but it's no where near the money they used to make. Granted with this new model finding good music is like finding a needle in the haystack. There's a lot of noise. But there's also a lot of interesting art that never would have been released under the previous model because it doesn't fit the maximize profit formula used by the big guys.

      I kind of like where we are. Most of the artists I like are adjusting, and we're getting greedy jerks who don't care about music anyway out of the picture. The artist takes all of the pie now and I feel that's how it should be. They're the ones creating it.

      Facebook is just looking for another way to potentially monetize it for the dead industry. All the points you list are precisely why it doesn't matter. Do it or don't do it. The sun has already set.

      --
      I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
    6. Re:Business Opportunity by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Why should they be, won't to play and record music, have fun, why should my tax dollars pay protect you imaginary monopoly, serious money, get a real job flipping burgers and play and record in you spare time for fun, with hundreds of millions able to exactly the same and self publish on the internet, why should tax payers spend hundreds of millions dollars to create a false monopoly at the expense of free speech and this without properly proving the social worth of the content and paying for that social value assessment to be done.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  2. I wish youtube would do that... by PhantomHarlock · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There -really- needs to be a licensing regime where popular commercial music can be used on user's videos, and for the creator of the music and the creator of the video to share the ad revenue. On my videos I do not use commercial music (I license royalty free music, which is like finding a needle in a haystack in terms of finding a good match for your piece) so that I may monetize the videos, but every once in a while I would love to use a piece of pop music or a film score in a video. It would be great if I can just do it, and then the artist / publisher gets a cut depending on the length used.

    Right now if a video has a copyrighted song in it, the publisher can either claim the whole video, or take it down. It's all or nothing. I don't believe there is a revenue sharing option, which would make everyone happy and allow for an explosion of creativity.

    1. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by Train0987 · · Score: 1

      Why do you feel entitled to distribute and share the revenue of a work you had no part in creating?

    2. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      There's probably some use where the creator of the music used in the video should get all of the revenue, especially if you've just used the work without any permission at all. However, I can think of some user created content that is going to be transformational or could clearly constitute a derivative work (e.g., a user-created original music video) where an argument could be made for some revenue sharing.

      I can see some artists being against it completely though. If I were a musician I probably wouldn't care how much money I'm making if a group of racial nationalists (or some other group of people, say PETA for example, I just think are assholes for that matter) are using my work as part of their message.

      The problem is that the amount of money to be made is probably quite low except in the case of a few viral videos that are unpredictable in advance (much like musical hits in some ways) such that it's not worth my time or money as an artist to sift through offers. The value in any system that enables something like this is that it reduces the amount of work necessary to the point where it can become profitable for me as an artist to allow other people to use my creative works as a part of something that they're creating. A big movie studio has the money to make it easy to get artists to the table, whereas a small independent doesn't.

    3. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by Train0987 · · Score: 1

      The bottom line is that you should be able to 100% control who uses your works and for what purpose.

    4. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by bjwest · · Score: 1

      Music is a big part of our culture and, thanks to Disney and the RIAA, it's locked up perpetually. If they want to monetize our culture, then they need to let it go in a reasonable time frame, say ten years with no extensions. That's plenty of time to make money off their "creation", and will provide incentive to create more.

      --

      --- Keep the choice with the user..
    5. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by bjwest · · Score: 1

      Actually you can use short clips of anything, including music, due to fair use.

      --

      --- Keep the choice with the user..
    6. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by Train0987 · · Score: 1

      Now I'll ask you the same question: Why do you feel entitled to distribute and share the revenue of a work you had no part in creating?

    7. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by Train0987 · · Score: 1

      I have decided that your car is a big part of my culture. At what age should your car be before I can use it whenever I wish?

    8. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by Train0987 · · Score: 1

      Fair Use has a very narrow definition under the law.

    9. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by tepples · · Score: 1

      Because all original works have inspiration from some other work. Here's sort of an extreme example, but if we can find something on which we can agree, we can argue inward from that point:

      You had no part in creating the English language. Why do you feel entitled to distribute and share the revenue of works in this language?

    10. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by hord · · Score: 1

      Nobody feels entitled to anything. It's a simple statement of physical fact that when you release something to the public you have no control over its use anymore. You are angry because 2+3=5 and 5 isn't your favorite number. That's basically what the digital media argument comes down to.

      Your only option is to ask some people with guns to help you get some money. What most "pirates" say is that you don't have to go that far but no one offers a middle ground.

      That's where we are. And the "pirates" are still winning in case you are keeping score.

    11. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by tepples · · Score: 1

      I create an exact copy of your car and drive it. What have you lost?

    12. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by guruevi · · Score: 1

      The English language is old enough that even if there were initial copyright, it no longer exists. Copyright only exists on pieces that are ~40-100 years old (depending on your jurisdiction and how well a rights holder has kept up with the paperwork).

      The reason copyright exists is to allow people to profit of their art when performing it in public. You get great leeway as it is with modern licensing schemes and fair use laws, if you want to embed the digits in your work, then talk to the creator and get a revenue sharing deal going, it's not that hard.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    13. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Because nothing is taken.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    14. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by TheCastro1689 · · Score: 1

      He doesn't, he wants to give the music people a cut of the video he made which included their music. Sounds like he wants to play fair.

    15. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by tepples · · Score: 1

      The English language is old enough that even if there were initial copyright, it no longer exists.

      In other words, you agree that it's desirable to rely on copyright eventually expiring. I'll have to wait to see whether Train0987 agrees with this.

      talk to the creator and get a revenue sharing deal going, it's not that hard.

      How would this work for an individual amateur video producer who has no revenue in the first place?

      And are there request forms? Or if a free-form contact method such as email is preferred, what elements should a successful request include?

    16. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by edtice1559 · · Score: 1

      Well lets say I post a video showing somebody doing a quintuple jump ice skating. That would probably get a lot of hits. Now lets say some some pop track just happened to be playing in the background? How much should the "owners" of the music get? Just about nothing! That's the use case. As a more realistic example, I've had Facebook quash videos of my child because there is some obnoxious background music. If you want to listen to music without paying for it and neither radio nor the myriad of free streaming services work for you, are you really going to turn to watching Facebook videos of toddlers that happen to incidentally include a poor recording of a not very good song? These are *videos* where the *video* content is important and the music is incidental.

    17. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by exomondo · · Score: 1

      Music is a big part of our culture and, thanks to Disney and the RIAA, it's locked up perpetually.

      There's nothing to stop musicians from releasing works to the world independent of organizations like Disney and the RIAA, in fact professional quality recording, mixing and mastering is more affordable and accessible than ever before. The internet provides a mechanism for distribution that is much more affordable and accessible than the previous physical distribution mechanisms. The majority of musicians, songwriters, producers, etc, will sell out to corporate music where possible because that guarantees them the income and then those corporations own what they have produced.

      If they want to monetize our culture, then they need to let it go in a reasonable time frame, say ten years with no extensions.

      No, they don't have to do that, you might want them to do that but they most certainly do not have to do that. If you want to create a company that funds the production and promotion of music and then 'lets it go in a reasonable time frame' then by all means go and do that and let's see how successful you are. But I'd wager that people that have the choice would rather go with the company that will pay them royalties over 30 years vs 10 years.

    18. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by sheph · · Score: 1

      "If I were a musician I probably wouldn't care how much money I'm making if a group of racial nationalists (or some other group of people, say PETA for example, I just think are assholes for that matter) are using my work as part of their message."

      I think this issue is largely overblown. If some joker uses a song I wrote, I would hope my fans are smart enough to figure out that I don't necessarily agree with someone just because they used my song.

      You can release your art to the world or keep it all to yourself. But after you release it then it kind of goes where it goes. And there's good and bad in that. I find it somewhat ridiculous that they expect to maintain control and have their art reach as many people as possible. You mention racial nationalists which are high profile. Obviously a group most people would disagree with. Charles Manson coopted Helter Skelter. Does that mean he was endorsed by the Beatles? No, of course not. And most rational people understand that.

      --
      I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
    19. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by sheph · · Score: 1

      Yes, that's true. But I guess the question comes down to one of reasonability. How much is enough to inspire people to create and innovate, and yet still give consideration to masses of people who struggle to buy food every month? By no means am I a socialist. But a responsible capitalist realizes when he's got a good thing going rather than being blinded by greed.

      --
      I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
    20. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by tepples · · Score: 1

      Because the record labels forced it on me by paying radio stations to play it.

    21. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by tepples · · Score: 1

      "Sure, you can use our company's music through giving our company a cut. Toward this end, our company sets 'a cut' at half our company's market capitalization. By the way, that's tens of billions of U.S. dollars."

    22. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by guruevi · · Score: 1

      I do agree that copyright eventually expires.

      It's called investment in your business. Everyone on Youtube hopes to hit it big, so if you want a big name soundtrack, you have to invest and pay the license fee.

      For most record companies or even many individual musicians and bands, you can find sales or licensing information right on their website. If not, contact them and say what you want to do and what you can offer (doesn't have to be money). Small bands and individual musicians will often allow you to use media for free in exchange for exposure and attribution, larger companies often want a deal and exchange of money. If you're a channel with ~100k viewers, good promoters may even contact you to put their music on.

      If nothing else, you CAN buy blanket media licensing rights. I have pooled licenses for my digital signage customers for sports results, stock images, videos, music and the like. It's not cheap, these companies start negotiating at ~$25k/year although that gives you content for ~1-5k viewers per day.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    23. Re:I wish youtube would do that... by tepples · · Score: 1

      The exclusivity pursuant to TRIPS is taken, and all WTO member states are required to recognize the exclusivity pursuant to TRIPS.

  3. False take downs by Moof123 · · Score: 2

    How about we just implement an equivalent fine for false take down notices as users face for willful infringement? If media companies can't just spam every video with background music as infringing without risking monetary damage they might simmer down a bit.

  4. This is new? by chad.koehler · · Score: 1

    About 2 years ago I uploaded a video to Facebook, and it was immediately flagged as containing audio that may be infringing and was removed. I'm surprised to hear that this is new since they apparently had this ability years ago.

    1. Re:This is new? by edtice1559 · · Score: 1

      Probably a video of your kid. Fortunately now you can indicate that you think you're in the "fair use" realm and they will then strip the audio out for you and post the video!

  5. DACA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    DACA......is CACA

    1. Re: DACA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes MAGA fuck DACA.

  6. Re:Royalty free music... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Or the person creating the video for upload could use royalty free music, give credit where credit is due, and sidestep the whole copyright issue.

    Useless advice. Most people including copyrighted music in their uploaded videos are not professional content creators, and are simply uploading videos of themselves dancing to a song, or a video of a live performance they were at, or some other content where the copyrighted material is an integral part of the video.

    Also, most copyright-free music is, in a word, shit. You get what you pay for.

  7. The real question is by bobstreo · · Score: 1

    What will the artists receive from this agreement?

    I'm guessing it won't be much, if anything.

  8. Any good alternates? by virtualXTC · · Score: 1

    I only like 20% of my friends taste in music anyway, just like I want a separate network for business stuff (LinkedIn) I'd rather have a separate social network for exchanging music. LastFM sort of filled this niche for a tiny bit but never focused on the network enough for me, I tried tastebuds.fm while single about 6 months ago and it was closer to what I was looking for interims of sharing music, but a little too heavily dating focused to be useful now.

  9. Just Google it ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    ... they need to pay Google to do this:

    ... and Facebook has promised to build a system to identify and tag music that infringes copyrights.

    I took a video, 6 years ago, of a couple dancing after their wedding and put it up on YouTube and Sony sent me a take down notice!

    All they did is use an algorithm similar to the app, What's That Song?"

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    1. Re:Just Google it ... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      I shot a video of a wedding recently and overlaid American Authors - Best Day Of My Life over it. I then uploaded it to Youtube unlisted, and Facebook private open to tagged people only. In both cases there were people who couldn't see this private video shared among friends.

      Did the "copyright infringement" stop? Nah, I simply put the file on Dropbox and sent everyone a download link. Also I sped it up slightly which caused Facebook's detection algorithm to fail (though it didn't fool Youtube)

  10. Ringgold v. BET by tepples · · Score: 1

    Then the author of that video failed to adhere to industry-standard set dressing practices. See Ringgold v. BET, 126 F.3d 70 (2d Cir. 1997).

    1. Re:Ringgold v. BET by tepples · · Score: 1

      the author of that video [which included a radio playing nonfree music] failed to adhere to industry-standard set dressing practices.

      What industry?

      I was referring to the television industry.

      It's people sharing cell phone videos of their friends and family

      The same laws apply to all people.

      You must be a fucking riot at parties

      You assume I behave this way at parties. I do not. I behave this way in discussions about copyright on Internet forums, such as Slashdot and certain project pages of Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.

  11. Re:Royalty free music... by tepples · · Score: 2

    Why don't FM radio stations do the same and play royalty-free music?

  12. Re:Royalty free music... by sd4f · · Score: 1

    They won't get paid to play it...

  13. Re:Royalty free music... by tepples · · Score: 1

    So let me get this straight: Record labels are paying radio stations to pollute the minds of members of the public with familiarity with nonfree musical works.

  14. Good luck getting a label to reply by tepples · · Score: 1

    larger companies often want a deal and exchange of money.

    Provided they even reply in the first place. Other comments to this story, such as this comment, report that record labels (which control master rights) and music publishers (which control sync rights) have a habit of ignoring licensing inquiries entirely.

    1. Re:Good luck getting a label to reply by guruevi · · Score: 1

      Because in most cases it's a waste of time and money to respond to licensing inquiries you won't be able to afford or even to negotiate small deals.

      But if you want cheap licensing, there are plenty of small fry audio licensing websites out there. Many photographers use it for wedding videos and the like. You can even get some sites (songfreedom.com) that do pop songs licenses starting at ~$20/mo. But again, if you're a big channel and want to use big names, be prepared to spend big money.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  15. Re:Royalty free music... by sd4f · · Score: 1

    I don't know what they do now, but yes, once upon a time payola was quite widespread. I presume that there's some sort of workaround to get away with it.

    On a slightly different topic, I once got to go to a video game launch party. I've been having quite a lot of annoyance with the 10 point game review scale, and when I had a little bit too much time on my hands, I put in one sites review scores into a spreadsheet, and basically arrived at a bell curve with a median of 8 and average of ... 7.5. It basically appeared like a normal distribution from 5-10, with the exception of a few outliers below 5. It practically meant that they had a 5 point scale, just that anything below 6 was just garbage. Now reason I mention this is because, it's quite widespread in the industry to give mediocre games a 7/10, where normally you'd think that seems good, if you're oblivious to its meaning, but reality is, most games getting a 7/10 are average at best.

    Anyway, with that, the launch party; free food, free alcohol, nice hired venue, free copy of a special media edition of the game, if you were in the industry, as if you'd jeopardise access to these sorts of events by writing a poor review. After all, its an exercise in PR for them, if you pan the product, clearly they made a mistake in inviting you. So, that's one example for that industry. I'm sure there's some sorts of levers that the music industry has to entice radio stations to play their crap, as opposed to just about any other crap.

  16. Re:Royalty free music... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    Yes but there are some cases where a famous and relevant song just fits your video better.

  17. Asset flips by tepples · · Score: 1

    Perhaps the bottom half of the point scale is for asset flips and other comparably bad material.

    1. Re:Asset flips by sd4f · · Score: 1

      The only problem is, this was happening well before steam was opened up to anyone and everyone. Those attrocious games didn't exist on steam until a few years ago, because steam used to be curated and generally games on steam were, broadly speaking, good.

    2. Re:Asset flips by tepples · · Score: 1

      There were some pretty bad cassette games on 8-bit home computers in Europe.