Meta, Universal Music Group Extend Licensing Deal To Include WhatsApp, Covering Artists Like Taylor Swift, Coldplay

A new agreement between Meta Platforms Inc META and Universal Music Group is reconfirming the substantial role of social media in increasing the revenue stream of major artists like Taylor Swift, Coldplay and Bob Dylan.

The two companies announced the multiyear agreement on Monday, which extends Meta's rights to use UMG artists across its platform range, including user-generated content in Facebook and Instagram, as well as software on its virtual reality platform Meta Quest. 

The agreement for the first time includes Whatsapp as a platform, where Meta is now allowed to license UMG content.

Along with Swift, Coldplay and Bob Dylan, UMG represents artists such as Drake, Billie Eilish, Elton John, Adele, U2, Harry Styles and Sting.

In 2017, UMG became the first major music company to license its content to Meta, then called Facebook. The deal opened the floodgates to a cascade of user-generated content that was now allowed to use artist tracks as background music.

In 2018, Warner Music Group Corp WMG and Sony Music Group, a subsidiary of Sony Group Corp SONY signed similar deals that generated new income for artists and ended years of legal battles between record labels and social media companies over copyright infringement.

A decision by Meta last year to shut down its Premium Music Videos platform has had a strong impact on the balance sheets of major record labels. The decision will cost Warner Music Group at least $10 million per quarter, according to its CFO, Music Business reports.

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AI, A Growing Concern For Record Labels: The deal between Meta and UMG comes on the heels of a dispute between the record label and TikTok, which is a direct competitor for Meta in many of its products.

In their press release, the two companies emphasized that they'll continue working together to address "unauthorized AI-generated content that could affect artists and songwriters."

Back in March, UMG pulled its 4 million-song catalog from TikTok, citing concerns over the latter's handling of music copyrights in the training of artificial intelligence models.

The label claimed that TikTok had not given any assurances that it wouldn't use UMG songs to train its AI. 

The dispute got resolved in May, when the two companies reached a new agreement which clarified that "TikTok and UMG will work together to ensure AI development across the music industry will protect human artistry and the economics that flow to those artists and songwriters," as a press release stated.

TikTok also committed to working with UMG to remove unauthorized AI-generated music from the platform, as well as tools to improve artist and songwriter attribution.

Earlier this year, a group of musical artists including Billie Eilish, Stevie Wonder, Nicki Minaj, Elvis Costello, Norah Jones and Kathy Perry signed an open letter demanding AI developers stop the use of "predatory" AI technology liable to "undermine or replace the human artistry of songwriters and artists."

The artists stated that the unrestricted use of their music to train AI systems has the potential to “violate creators’ rights, and destroy the music ecosystem.”

In June, TikTok announced the creation of a new internal team dedicated to acquiring music rights. Such a move could free the company to train AI models on its own music, potentially offering users AI-generated music based on their own preferences, eliminating record labels from the equation.

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