Music from pop stars like Taylor Swift, Adele, Billie Eilish and Elton John will soon be available to play and share on WhatsApp.
Universal Music Group, the world’s largest multinational music group featuring some of the world’s biggest artists, signed a multi-year licensing agreement with Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms on Monday.
The deal expands on an earlier pact from 2017 in which UMG licensed its music catalog to Facebook and its sister platforms Messenger, Instagram and Oculus.
The renewed deal also includes short-form video and licensed music to be featured on Meta-owned WhatsApp.
“The new agreement reflects our companies’ shared commitment to protecting human creators and artistry, including ensuring that artists and songwriters are fairly compensated,” the companies said in a joint statement.
“UMG was the first major music company to license to Facebook in 2017, and this new agreement will further expand the possibilities for music within the Meta ecosystem.”
Financial terms were not disclosed.
The renewed deal will allow UMG artists and songwriters to receive a portion of advertising revenue generated by the use of their licensed music in Meta creator posts.
In late July, the music label announced it was ending its partnership with Meta to offer paid music video streaming, saying that type of product was less popular with Facebook’s user base than its other music products.
The $54 billion group, which controls more than a third of the market, struck a new licensing deal with TikTok in May, bringing its music and artists back to the social media platform.
UMG’s songs were removed from TikTok following a months-long dispute between the two companies over royalty payments.
TikTok, owned by China-based company Bytedance, has been criticized by UMG for paying low prices for music rights compared to what other platforms are paying.
UMG also expressed concerns about TikTok’s policy on artificial intelligence-generated music, which it sees as a potential threat to content created by human artists.
In negotiations between the two parties, UMG demanded that TikTok promise stronger protections against AI-generated music being used on TikTok without proper licensing.
Last month, UMG shares fell more than 23% in a single day after investors were disappointed by second-quarter streaming and subscription revenue that fell short of expectations.
With post wire
