Tired of uploading a video to Facebook, only to find out the music in the video is copyrighted? How about when you try to share your favorite videos from a concert or festival? Now, these videos with copyrighted background music will no longer be taken down. Instead of taking down or muting these videos, Facebook will monetize the videos with ads. Money made through the ads will be given to the artists and labels associated with the tracks.

When the update goes into effect, users that upload videos with copyrighted music will be notified if the song aligns with the monetization deals, or if their video will be muted/deleted. Rightfully, Facebook will compensate artists and labels whose music is used, but will not release how much the artist and labels will make. No need to worry about a song playing in the background to ruin your entire video!

This is a huge step forward for Facebook as they are now encouraging original sharing by all users. Videos with music are more engaging anyway and will increase watch time on the app. It is also reported that Facebook is testing “options for adding the music you love to Facebook Stories.”

Facebook Combats Musical.ly

Additionally, Facebook is testing a new feature designed to steal users from the popular Musical.ly app. Facebook’s Lip Sync Live will allow users to pick from a list of popular songs and lip sync on a Facebook Live broadcast. You can even co-stream with a friend and share the duet to Facebook for all your friends to watch. Hundreds of songs will be available to choose from, including most of the top 40 hits.

As we have seen, Facebook is struggling to keep teen users on the platform, many choosing Instagram and Twitter instead. Muscial.ly has an impressive 60 million monthly users, most of which are teens. Facebook wants to steel these users back to their platform, giving another reason to use Facebook again.

“We’re starting to roll out Lip Sync Live, which lets you lip sync to songs from forever favorites like ‘Welcome to The Jungle’ by Guns N’ Roses to new hits like ‘Havana’ by Camila Cabello,”  Facebook’s Head of Music Business Development & Partnerships, Tamara Hrivnak stated.

Facebook’s Lip Sync Live will be a great platform for those wanting to share their lip-syncing skills and to stay active on Facebook with friends. For those of us not interested in lip syncing, we can sit back and enjoy the livestreams soon to come!