Meta introduces Music Revenue Sharing on Facebook, “a new way to earn money” for creators and music rights holders
The announcement comes after a rocky summer for Meta’s music services.
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Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta has announced a new monetisation feature allowing creators to use licensed music from popular artists in their Facebook videos and earn a share of in-stream ad revenue.
The feature promises to make it easier for content creators to monetise video content that uses licensed music from popular artists, promising a mutually beneficial system both for rights holders and creators. Powered by Rights Manager, a video, audio and image-matching tool by Meta that allows creators to track how their content is being shared across Facebook and Instagram, Music Revenue Sharing means that video creators will receive 20% revenue share on eligible videos, with a separate share going to music rights holders and to Meta.
“This feature is the first of its kind within the music industry — no other platform offers creators this type of revenue model at this scale,” said Meta in a post. “Today, we’re introducing Music Revenue Sharing on Facebook, making it easier for creators to monetise their videos that use licensed music from popular and emerging artists like Post Malone, Tove Lo, Grupo La Cambia, Leah Kate, Bicep and more. This gives both creators and music rights holders a new way to earn money from videos on Facebook.”
The announcement comes just days after Kobalt Music Publishing dealt Meta’s musical standing a severe blow by announcing it will withdraw its entire catalogue of over 700,000 songs from the platform, after failing to reach a deal on a new license. Swedish production house Epidemic Sound also hit Meta with a $142m lawsuit this month, citing Meta’s “unlawful conduct” as responsible for over “80,000 new instances of theft of Epidemic’s works per day.” Epidemic Sound alleged Meta “has created tools” with the “primary purpose to increase the amount of theft” on Facebook and Instagram.
“Perhaps Meta is hoping to get away with it for as long as possible,” said Epidemic Sound in the suit. “Perhaps Meta is hoping that it will intimidate a company like Epidemic into bowing to Meta rather than incurring the disruption and expense of a lawsuit. Meta is wrong.”
