The inclusion of Meta’s instant messaging service,\u00a0WhatsApp,<\/strong> means that<\/span> its users can now share licensed music from UMG within the app.<\/p>\n UMG said on Monday that its partnership with Meta to license music for WhatsApp unlocks “new value for UMG artists and songwriters in the future”.<\/p>\n Plus, as part of their new partnership, Meta and UMG said that they will work together “to address, among other things, unauthorized AI-<\/strong>generated content that could affect artists and songwriters”.<\/p>\n Today’s announcement comes two weeks after UMG specifically referenced Meta<\/strong> in the music company’s calendar Q2 earnings results (covering the three months to the end of June).<\/p>\n Within those quarterly results, which saw UMG’s overall revenues up 9.6% YoY<\/strong><\/span>, UMG announced that its ad-funded streaming revenues had declined slightly, down 3.9% YoY<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n Part of the reason for that decline, explained<\/a> UMG’s CFO, Boyd Muir<\/strong>, was that Meta<\/strong> stopped licensing premium videos for Facebook<\/strong> from UMG in May. That decision from Meta, he said, was due to these high-end music videos proving “less popular with Facebook’s user base than other music products”.<\/p>\n Muir<\/strong> added on UMG’s Q2 earnings call in July: \u201cMeta<\/strong> is now focusing instead on other areas involving music content, and we are working together to expand these areas as part of a multifaceted renewal.\u201d<\/p>\n That “multifaceted renewal” is now signed and sealed, with UMG and Facebook jointly stating today in a media release: “The new agreement expands monetization opportunities for UMG, and its artists and songwriters, even further with short form video<\/strong>, building on Meta and UMG\u2019s joint track record of innovation and collaboration.”<\/p>\n To sum that up: UMG<\/strong> has lost some potential revenue from Meta<\/strong> due to the latter company’s decision to stop licensing premium videos on Facebook<\/strong>… but the fresh agreement announced today appears to have created new<\/em> revenue opportunities for Universal in the short-form video space (and, very possibly, from the additional licensing of UMG’s catalog to Whatsapp).<\/p>\n (Sidenote: UMG rival Warner Music Group<\/strong> last week estimated<\/a> that, in its current deal with Meta,<\/strong> the removal of licensed premium music videos from Facebook will have a $10 million-per-quarter<\/strong> <\/span>negative impact on WMG’s revenues going forward.)<\/p>\n According to Monday’s announcement, UMG’s new agreement with Meta builds upon the “strategic framework” established with 2017\u2019s “landmark agreement” with the company then known as Facebook.<\/p>\n Under the 2017 agreement, UMG became<\/a> the first major music company to license its recorded music and music publishing catalogs across Facebook\u2019s platforms. UMG said on Monday that Facebook “took a pioneering role as music\u2019s first fully licensed partner among the major social media platforms”.<\/p>\n Meta and Universal previously signed a deal two years ago in 2022.<\/p>\n UMG Chairman & CEO Sir Lucian Grainge<\/strong>\u00a0confirmed<\/a> on UMG’s Q2 2022 earnings call that his company had inked a licensing agreement with Meta that \u201cexpands revenue sharing and enhances [the] Meta community\u2019s engagement with our catalog\u201d.<\/p>\n That agreement included the use of UMG\u2019s music within Meta\u2019s UGC video payout model for the music business. Meta\u00a0announced in July 2022 that it would start directly sharing<\/a> a proportion of advertising revenue with music rightsholders for certain user-generated video content on Facebook that is 60 seconds or longer.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are thrilled to announce our renewal with Universal Music Group, and Universal Music Publishing Group, both of whom are innovators for music on social media, especially with regard to Meta\u2019s family of apps.”<\/p>\n Tamara Hrivnak, Meta<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Tamara Hrivnak, VP Music and Content Business Development at Meta, added: \u201cWe are thrilled to announce our renewal with Universal Music Group, and Universal Music Publishing Group, both of whom are innovators for music on social media, especially with regard to Meta\u2019s family of apps.<\/p>\n “This partnership builds on the recognition that music can help connect us and bring fans, artists, and songwriters closer together, not only on established platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, but also in new ways on WhatsApp, and more.<\/p>\n “We\u2019re extremely grateful to the Universal team, and look forward to growing our partnership in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n “We are delighted that Meta shares our artist-centric vision for respecting human creativity and compensating artists and songwriters fairly.”<\/p>\n Michael Nash, Universal Music Group<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Michael Nash, Chief Digital Officer & EVP, Universal Music Group, said: \u201cSince our landmark 2017 agreement, Meta has consistently demonstrated its commitment to artists and songwriters by helping to amplify the importance music holds across its global network of engaged communities and platforms, creating new opportunities and applications where music amplifies and leads engagement and conversations.<\/p>\n “We are delighted that Meta shares our artist-centric vision for respecting human creativity and compensating artists and songwriters fairly.<\/p>\n “We look forward to continuing to work together to address unauthorized AI-generated content that could affect artists and songwriters, so that UMG can continue to protect their rights both now and in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n In recent months, Universal and Meta have collaborated on campaigns across Meta’s platforms for UMG-affiliated artists, including\u00a0Billie Eilish<\/a>, Karol G,\u00a0Taylor Swift,<\/a> and others.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Deal also covers Meta properties including Messenger, Horizon and Threads<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":208505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1324,1358,130229,123],"class_list":["post-208484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-facebook","tag-instagram","tag-meta","tag-universal"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Tamara](\"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/files\/2017\/01\/TamaraHvrivnak-e1608040049911-80x72.jpg "\\"Tamara")
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