Facebook and Indian Performing Rights Society sign music licensing deal for video, other content on Facebook, Instagram

Facebook has signed a music licensing deal with the Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) – a representative body of authors and owners, which include composers, lyricists, and owner publishers of music. As part of the deal, Facebook and Instagram users will be able to access music from the IPRS repertoire with hundreds and thousands of songs, to add in their own videos they share on Facebook and Instagram, as well as other social features like **Reels** or Music Stickers on Stories. The deal with Facebook will cover licensing and royalties whenever music represented by the IPRS is used on Facebook and Instagram. [caption id=“attachment_8619261” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]  Representational Image. Creative credit: Nandini Yadav/tech2[/caption] This association will also benefit the artists/ members of IPRS, who would be able to get their music compositions out to millions of people in the country on Instagram and Facebook. “Music plays an important role in India for sparking people’s creative expression. With this agreement, people will be able to access a wide variety of music and discover new scores from hundreds of authors and owners, across various genres in many Indian languages,” says Manish Chopra, Director and Head of Partnerships, Facebook India. “At the heart of music are the creators. The songwriters and the composers. IPRS is excited to create opportunities for our songwriters and composers for their use of works on Facebook and its platforms. The future is brighter when all industries work together and evolve the next phase of music usage together," Javed Akhtar Chairman IPRS said.

Days after the @Tiktok_IN app was banned in India, @Facebook started testing the #InstagramReels feature in India. @nandiniwhy brings a quick and fun guide on how to make your first Reel! pic.twitter.com/Y9s12auuhh

— Firstpost (@firstpost) July 13, 2020

Starting 1 August, Facebook will reportedly also be officially licensing music videos of artists in the United States across its platform. This move by Facebook is speculated to bring the platform in direct competition against Google’s YouTube that remains to be the biggest source of official music videos for users globally. Facebook trying to acquire music video rights is not new. The company has been negotiating licensing deals with three major music labels - Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Music Group - to break the monopoly of YouTube in the field.