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Snapchat’s owner Snap Inc. has signed a number of licensing agreements with major music publishers, Digital Music News reports. These deals are being structured by the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), and associated revenues will total almost $15 million over two years. They’re not brand new agreements – these are renewed deals, with terms ironed out and signed two years ago: that deal’s up, and Snap et al are signing it again. However the report gives us an interesting – alleged – glimpse into how these deals work.
That NMPA-structured deal is opt-in: any global NMPA member can signal its participation. If you’re not an NMPA member, the DMN report continues, those publishers will have to strike their own agreements – but allegedly Snap “flat-out isn’t doing deals with them,” so there’s that. The major publishers have signed their own separately-negotiated deals, the report explains. There’s also apparently some juicy legal language to consider: participating publishers agree “not to sue Snap or its users for the use of musical compositions or lyrics… in order to enter into the License Agreement” – essentially, agreeing to put any prior disagreements with Snap about composition use behind them.
The deals, the report continues, cover all of Snapchat’s features and associated companies like Bitmoji and Zenly, and it feels like Snap is setting itself up for some even closer integration with music artists. Possibilities could include in-app activations, performances, and other novel music experiences tailored to Snapchat’s user base, which Snap recently claimed to be over 900 million MAUs. (A figure that would mean that over 10% of the global population is using something Snap-related once a month.) Snap’s recent Q1 earnings report said that it has “experienced headwinds to start the current quarter”, and its share price dipped.
So: a re-signed publishing deal may not sound like earth-shattering news, but it is a signal that the global organisation and patient work of rightsholders representatives – who have been pushing hard for tighter and better deals from social platforms – is working. Deals like this are clearly proving to be repeatedly tempting for all parties: Snap will see continued opportunities to use music and grow its user base, and publishing rightsholders will start to feel more confident that future, improved deals can be signed.
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Editor, Music Ally More by Joe Sparrow
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(Plus all the weird links & unusual music we find online.)
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