Meta shakes up music industry with new revenue sharing deal

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has unveiled a new monetization feature that seeks to share revenue between music artists and content creators on the social media platform. 

Music Revenue Sharing is designed to make it easier for creators to monetize videos even when using licensed music, with Meta championing it as “the first of its kind within the music industry,” helping the site’s content creators “access more popular music, deepening relationships with their fans.”

The service, powered by Meta’s Rights Manager – a content-match tool that searches images, videos, and audio across Facebook and Instagram for original, copyrighted content – lets creators use their favorite tracks in videos and still earn money from them. 

How does Music Revenue Sharing on Facebook work? 

Before content creators can start monetizing videos using licensed music, they must first be eligible for Facebook’s in-stream ads and meet the platform’s monetization eligibility standards, community standards, and music guidelines.

According to Meta, eligible videos must be 60 seconds or longer and uploaded to a Facebook page, contain a visual component (so, users can’t upload the song with a blank screen), and feature music samples that are covered by Music Revenue Sharing. Users can explore all songs covered by the deal in Facebook’s Licensed Music library. 

The Menlo Park-based business, meanwhile, assures users that it’ll continue working with music rights holders to expand the current list to help “bring creators and the music industry closer together, leading to more authentic connections with fans.”

If a video meets the criteria set by Meta, content creators can expect 20% of the revenue share. The rest will go to Meta and music the rights holder.  However, on those ungenerous terms, it’s possible content creators will prefer to use open-license or royalty-free music and keep the full 100%. 

Music Revenue Sharing is available globally today. However, initially, creators will only earn money on videos delivered to US audiences, with the service expanding worldwide over the next few months. 

This latest unveiling builds on Meta’s on-going drive to help creators make more money on its platforms. In 2020, it revealed plans to pay users for live streaming content. Last week, the company announced the introduction of NFTs on Instagram, expanding the Facebook Stars and Facebook Reels Play bonus programs.