Copyright, and how Facebook Gaming could revolutionize music and creators’ relationships
Time to play some Drake songs on stream without getting a strike
Facebook Gaming just made a move that could potentially change the entire streaming industry for the better. The platform just signed deals with massive music companies like UMG, WMG and so many more — granting their partners (with plans to expand to creators in their “Level Up Program”) permission to stream music owned by these companies — the kind of music people would actually want to listen to, including names as big as Travis Scott.
This article talks about the history of copyright in the music industry, and how its gone from simply taking down content to monetizing infringing content to completely letting creators use it.
The “Before” picture
Content creators and the music industry have always had an “eh” relationship. It is illegal for anyone to use music without getting a license because in the eyes of the law, their music is their music and it’s normally hard for creators — especially those starting out — to obtain permission and learn about all sorts of complicated procedures needed before obtaining a license. Platforms like YouTube, Twitch and Facebook would have to comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and remove the copyrighted content or else they’d be held responsible for content that other people publish. Rightsholders could submit a legal complaint on the platform and then they’d take action, normally through a “strike” on the violating creator’s account. Each platform varies, but Twitch will permanently ban your account if you get 3 strikes from the platform from either a copyright strike or a TOS strike (usually the community guidelines) where YouTube would have this different and separate the two genres. If you get 3 strikes from either category, your account will be banned, and other platforms don’t have it that different. Facebook and Instagram have similar punishments. This discouraged the community from using copyrighted content.
Introducing YouTube’s Content ID
In 2007, the Google-owned video-sharing platform, YouTube, put out Content ID, a system that identifies videos using copyrighted content in their database. Because this system isn’t 100% perfect, they gave rightsholders who opted in their program 3 options:
- Nothing: All statistics from the video (including watch time, views, and more) would be made available to the rightsholder, but the video would remain online and no actions would be taken against the uploader.
- Monetize: Rightsholders could monetize the entire video, thus forwarding all revenue made from the video to the rightsholder. The video would remain online but ads will appear — even if not monetized by the uploader. All royalties would go to the rightsholder.
- Block: The rightsholder could block the video in certain territories or worldwide. This is the closest to a DMCA takedown, but the uploader wouldn’t receive a strike. The video will be unplayable to those in blocked territories.
This made the punishment for using copyrighted content a little bit more tolerable. It was a massive move for the industry at the time as it let creators do what they do best and be able to show the world their creations, all while allowing rightsholders to receive money for their creations in other people’s work, promote their original content in the description in that video so they could make more sales and discouraging them from filing legal complaints to get infringing content taken down completely.
According to The Verge (with a publication from Google cited), the Content ID system has paid out over $2 billion to rightsholders.
The Streaming World
In June, many Twitch streamers began receiving copyright takedowns strikes from clips almost 3 years old. Twitch lets their viewers create clips of moments from the initial livestream to save forever, and many streamers argued it was unfair to strike these because there was no way to prevent clips or purge them all, and the community began panicking. Twitch only has Audible Magic — a content identification system similar to Content ID and if music is identified, the VOD will have the segment with the music muted. There is no monetization or blocking like on YouTube.
In that thread, they said they are going to use Audible Magic on clips as well, rather than just on VODs like previously, are now giving streamers the ability to disable clips completely or delete multiple — or even all — of their clips at once and reminded everyone that using copyrighted music may subject them to a DMCA takedown.
Generally, streamers would always want to avoid playing those songs on stream because it could cost them their careers, but Facebook Gaming has other plans…
Facebook Gaming’s announcement and how they are now letting creators stream copyrighted content legally
On September 14, 2020, Facebook Gaming announced that partnered streamers — with Level Up creators coming soon — can now stream copyrighted music owned by several of the largest music companies, but how can this be?
Our work with music labels, publishers and societies, including Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Kobalt Music Group, BMG publishing, Merlin and many partners means you’re able to include a vast amount of music across a variety of genres — current pop hits, dance floor beats, hip hop, 80s classics and much more.
Facebook Gaming has partnered with these labels and is granting all of their partnered streamers permission to stream music from these labels and their artists — and yes, they’re talking about the big guys too. I mean “Drake”, “Marshmello” and “Shawn Mendes” big.
Facebook Gaming is known for focusing on their streamers first, and even announced in August 2020 that they would not be collecting fees from fan subscriptions for the next year. This move brings this platform to a whole other level, as this is the one time a platform isn’t just creating a place to just create content — they’re fighting for the creators and wrote some rules that seems pretty fair:
So, how’s it work? Music played during a gaming broadcast must be a background element, not be the primary focus of the stream. For example, a streamer’s voice and/or gameplay audio should be in the foreground. This also applies to clips made from a livestream, and the VOD version of livestreams, but does not extend to separately edited and uploaded VOD content.
This move could motivate more streamers to switch over to Facebook and could motivate other competing platforms like Twitch and YouTube to follow in Facebook’s footsteps or even motivate music industries to lessen their grip on their properties and could change the music industry and the streaming industry as a whole.
Creators would have permission to stream the music they want that people actually listen to and would love to hear on their streams. It could also better promote those songs as well and make rightsholders more money and get more publicity now that their tunes are right behind their favorite creator’s gameplay and screaming — well, hopefully not screaming.
