Warner Music Group has become the latest major music company to strike a fresh multi-year licensing deal with Facebook parent company, Meta.
The new agreement includes Meta properties Facebook and Instagram, plus Messenger, Horizon, and Threads.
A Warner Music Group spokesperson told MBW today (October 7): “We’re pleased to have renewed our deal with Meta, expanding opportunities for artists and songwriters across all their platforms, and furthering our discussions on the potential of AI.”
As first reported by Billboard, WMG’s new deal with Meta also includes, for the first time, the technology giant’s popular messaging app, WhatsApp.
The agreement arrives two months after WMG rival Universal Music Group inked a global licensing deal with Meta, which also included WhatsApp for the first time.
The confirmation of the new deal comes two months after WMG referenced Meta on its calendar Q2 earnings call.
Warner Music Group EVP/CFO, Bryan Castellani warned that in fiscal Q4 (calendar Q3), Warner will see a negative impact of approximately $10 million per quarter going forward — across recorded music and publishing — from Meta’s decision to no longer license (and make available on its platforms) premium music videos.
Because this impact won’t hit WMG until calendar Q3, it obviously didn’t affect Warner’s streaming (namely: ad-funded streaming) figures in calendar Q2. Warner’s recorded music streaming revenues across ad-funded and subscription in calendar Q2 climbed 10.2% YoY on a constant currency and like-for-like basis.
WMG rival Universal did, however, see an impact from Meta’s abandonment of premium music videos in calendar Q2. On UMG’s Q2 earnings call in July, the company explained that Meta’s decision to no longer license premium music videos was a significant driver in UMG’s ad-funded streaming revenues declining 3.9% YoY in the quarter, which in turn dragged down UMG’s overall streaming growth story.
Warner’s fresh deal with Meta arrived just over two years after the companies’ previously-inked licensing deal, confirmed by former Warner Music Group CEO Steve Cooper during an earnings call in August 2022.
Warner’s latest deal expands promotional and marketing support for artists and songwriters signed via WMG and Warner Chappell Music.
“We’re pleased to have renewed our deal with Meta, expanding opportunities for artists and songwriters across all their platforms, and furthering our discussions on the potential of AI.”
Warner Music Group spokesperson
As indicated by the comment issued by WMG’s spokesperson, the expanded partnership will also see Meta and Warner collaborate to further discussions about generative AI content available on Meta’s platforms and how that content impacts artists and songwriters.
Warner has been particularly vocal this year about the need for protections around AI.
In April, for example, WMG CEO Robert Kyncl appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to support legislation to crack down on unauthorized deep fakes.
In July, Warner Music Group sent a letter to tech companies declaring that its content can only be used to train AI with the music company’s permission.
Meta, meanwhile, appears to be developing AI tools at a rapid pace. On Friday (October 4), the company introduced ‘Meta Movie Gen’, described by Meta as its “breakthrough generative AI research for media”.
It includes advances in both text-to-image and text-to-video to create high-quality and high-definition images and videos, as well as an audio and music-generation element. Meta said that it trained a “13B parameter audio generation model that can take a video and optional text prompts and generate high-quality and high-fidelity audio up to 45 seconds”.
Those 45-second clips can include ambient sound, sound effects (aka Foley), and instrumental background music, all synced to the video content.
On September 25, Meta revealed that over 400 million people are using its ‘Meta AI’ tools monthly, with 185 million people using it across the company’s products each week.Music Business Worldwide
