[imagesource:reuters]

Universal Music Group, the world’s largest multinational music group representing the world’s biggest recording artists, has signed a deal with Meta to allow for music to be played and shared across WhatsApp.

The deal is an expansion of an earlier agreement from 2017 in which UMG licensed its music catalogues to Facebook and its sister platforms Messenger, Instagram and Oculus.

The deal includes short-form videos and licensed music that will be shared across all Meta networks and will give UMG artists and songwriters a portion of advertising revenue from using licensed music on Meta creator posts.

The most famous music labels in the United States are under Universal Music Group. The company also has joint shares in some of the biggest record labels around the world, such as Interscope Records, Geffen Records, Capitol Music Group, Republic Records, Def Jam Recordings, Island Records, Caroline Records, Universal Music Latin Entertainment, Universal Music Group Nashville, The Verve Label Group, Universal Music UK, and many more.

In May, the $54 billion (R972 billion) conglomerate controlling over 33% of the market (and owning stars like Taylor Swift, Adele, Billie Eilish and Elton John) came to a new license arrangement with TikTok, bringing its music and artists back to the social media network. Due to a months-long disagreement between the two firms about royalties, UMG’s music was removed from TikTok.

UMG accused TikTok, controlled by the Chinese business ByteDance, of underpaying for the rights to its music when compared to the amounts paid by other platforms. UMG also expressed concerns over TikTok’s policies as they relate to artificial intelligence-generated music — which is viewed as a potential threat to content created by human artists.

The financial terms for the deal were not disclosed, but with yet another platform to stream its catalogue, it’s all just cherries on top for UMG.

[source:msn]