Facebook in early talks to launch audio music-streaming service

Facebook’s digital music ambitions have been making headlines this month, with reports of early talks with labels linked to its trial of ad-supported native videos, Musically.com reported.
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Sources speaking to the website off the record have revealed just how bold Facebook’s plans are, with its plans to monetize music videos an important stepping stone towards the on-demand audio service.

That’s because the first phase will see Facebook paying royalties to music rightsholders for plays of their music videos on its service, while also launching a system akin to YouTube’s Content ID to help those rightsholders identify and then either take down or ‘claim’ user-uploaded videos featuring their music – getting associated ad revenues in the latter case.

Sources told Music Ally that talks for the music-video side of things are at an advanced stage, with a rollout expected to happen in the next few months. We understand that the Content ID-style system is being licensed in from a third party rather than built in-house, with labels keen to be sure that the system is reliable and efficient before finalising licensing deals.

Facebook will match YouTube’s per-stream rates to rightsholders at launch, although rightsholders hope there is scope for those rates to improve once the service is up and running – especially if Facebook’s targeting capabilities enable it to charge advertisers more, as well as if the social network stumps up to secure exclusives on specific videos.