Facebook Gaming had a copyright policy that prevented streamers from playing copyrighted music in the background of live streams. For the first time, Facebook is resolving this problem by allowing its partnered streamers to play popular copyrighted music in their live streams.
According to Facebook, it has worked with several music labels, societies, and publishers including Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Kobalt Music Group, BMG publishing, Merlin, and others to offer a variety of music genres to its streamers, from current pop hits to 80s classics and more.
There are still, however, some tracks that Facebook has kept restricted, meaning they are not licensed for use on Facebook Gaming. Therefore, if a streamer tries to play one of those tracks, they will receive a pop-up notification from Facebook, prohibiting them from playing the track. It is not certain what tracks are restricted to play or if there is a certain category of them. Facebook says that due to confidential specifics of its licensing agreements, it can not disclose which songs are not covered. The music catalogue that contains playable tracks is vast and there aren't a lot of the restricted tracks, so apparently streamers still have a variety of tracks to choose from.
The initiative is, nevertheless, huge for streamers who haven't been able to include music tracks in their live streams' background ever since Facebook launched Gaming.
Facebook says it will roll out the new program to all of its streamers eventually.
