Meta and Universal Music Group Ink New Multi-Year Music Licensing Deal
The companies first came to an agreement in 2017.
Meta and Universal Music Group (UMG) have announced an expansion of their partnership that will allow the label’s artists to showcase their work across Meta platforms. The two companies initially inked a deal back in 2017, in which UMG licensed its catalogs on Meta platforms, meaning that creators were able to use songs from the label’s artists in their content.
Announced on Monday, the new global, multiyear deal is described as serving to “evolve the creative and commercial opportunities for UMG artists and Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) songwriters across Meta’s global network of platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Horizon, Threads and, for the first time, WhatsApp.”
With the new agreement, UMG artists and songwriters will be offered more opportunities to monetize their music, particularly with short-form videos.
While it’s unclear exactly how the short-form video space will be changing – though that expansion seems to predominantly pertain to Instagram Reels – the companies say that they’re also collaborating on working together to address unauthorized AI-generated content on Meta platforms that may unfairly rip off UMG artists.
