You won’t see many more important appointments in the global music business than this.
In September last year, MBW spotted that Facebook was hiring for a Director of Global Music Licensing.
Our headline began: ‘YouTube beware.’ How apt.
We can now confirm that Facebook has poached Tamara Hrivnak to lead its global music strategy worldwide. She leaves behind her role as Director Of Music Partnerships at YouTube and Google Play in San Francisco.
Hrivnak (pictured) will be well known in music business circles.
She spent nearly eight years at Warner Music Group in roles including Vice President, Digital Business Affairs & Strategy for Warner/Chappell before joining Google in 2011.
In a note (appropriately enough) on Facebook yesterday, Hrivnak confirmed she was joining Mark Zuckerberg‘s company to “lead global music strategy and business development”, and that she was looking forward to “deepening Facebook’s relationship with the music industry”.
She added: “Music is important and it matters – it connects us and binds us to times, places, feelings and friends. My career has been dedicated to growing opportunities for music in the digital landscape.
“Facebook is all about making the world more open and connected and music can play an important role – I’m excited to join that effort.”
Facebook, which boasts over 1.7bn active users, is widely expected to make a move into licensed music content in the future.
This is likely to be tied to its fast-developing equivalent of YouTube’s Content ID, Rights Manager.
In December, MBW reported that music publishers such as UMPG were battering the company with copyright takedown requests regarding video cover versions of well-known songs.
The news of Hrivnak‘s arrival comes four months after we learned that ex-Warner Bros and Def Jam boss Lyor Cohen had been named YouTube’s Global Head Of Music.
His team will now have to do without his ex-Warner colleague.
In July last year, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg told investors that “the big theme and strategy that we’re executing is we’re going to become video first.”
The very next month, Facebook acquired the team behind UGC music video app Eyegroove.
Zuckerberg has also publicly expressed his respect for what Eyegroove rival Musical.ly has achieved.
And in early 2016, Facebook was licensed by Warner Music for a product called Slideshow that allowed users to soundtrack photo albums or videos with music.Music Business Worldwide
