Facebook plans to help musos monetise their live streams

With the livestream boom underway, the music industry has been hustling the big tech platforms to help monetise the hours of uploaded music content.

Local acts have also been forced to find creative ways to engage fans during the pandemic.

While organisations like Music Rights Australia are lobbying for licensing deals with big tech players, the major platforms are responding with solutions. Albeit, rather slowly.

The world’s biggest social network, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, is planning to release a new feature that would allow creators to charge for access to Facebook Live events.

As yet, no date has been confirmed for the rollout.

Nor any details on how revenue would be divided, but those plans could match Twitch with a 50/50 split or YouTube with a 70/30 split in the creator’s favour.

Ticketing live streams would allow artists, and multi-bill gigs like the Instagram Live music festival Iso-Aid, to generate an income. And god knows, it can’t come soon enough.

In an op-ed published by TMN last week, ARIA chief Dan Rosen said the rise in live streaming of performances has been “exponential” due to the lockdown.

“Artists are performing across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, with music fans becoming more accepting of low-fi production,” he wrote.

“As an industry, we need to have a conversation about the monetisation of live streaming.

“That is why we are monitoring new monetisation models like OnlyFans and StageIt, and encouraging more of the existing platforms to offer paid options for artists.”

The only problem is, the music industry is unable to collect any coin for those efforts, other than asking viewers to donate or buy merchandise.

Vanessa Hutley, general manager at Music Rights Australia, said that before COVID-19 Australia’s legal environment did not adequately protect the creative industries online.

“We see streaming becoming more important than ever as many performers, labels and event organisers are moving to online streaming to generate income and keep in touch with their fans.

“Copyright owners require certainty that they will be paid when their music is on digital platforms and that they can have unauthorised content removed instantly and permanently.”

Other changes and new features for Facebook Live are in also in the works, stay tuned.