Last week we reported that according to the rumors, Facebook was supposedly in talks with the major record labels. It was unclear as to why the social network was talking to them, but it was speculated then that it could hint that Facebook might be interested in launching their own music streaming service.
Now thanks to a report from Music Ally, it seems that those rumors are only getting stronger. The publication claims that they have heard from their sources that Facebook’s interest in a music streaming service is for real and that they are currently in talks to make it happen. Supposedly Facebook will be trialing the revenue generation through ad-supported music video, after which it is expected to apply that model to audio streaming.
Facebook is also apparently launching a similar tool like YouTube’s Content ID in which artists and labels will be able to take down music videos uploaded by unauthorized third-parties, kind of like how on YouTube there are music videos hosted by the official labels, and there are also videos uploaded by individuals.
As for the ad-supported music videos, Facebook will match YouTube’s per-stream rates at launch, but it is expected to improve once everything gets up and running. It is also expected to begin rolling out in the next few months. Now Facebook definitely has a userbase that they can work on, but whether or not users will be willing to switch to Facebook’s video/audio streaming remains to be seen.
In any case take it with a grain of salt for now, but how willing would you be to use Facebook’s platform versus more established services like YouTube or Spotify?