Facebook has reportedly begun notifying administrators of pages linked to musical artists in the U.S. that they must activate a new setting prior to Aug. 1 for officially licensed music videos to be added to those pages.
Sarah Perez of TechCrunch reviewed materials that were sent to admins, reporting that they will not be tasked with manually uploading videos or providing links, and that activating the new setting gives Facebook permission to add videos to their pages, which can be discovered via the Videos tab.
Artists’ official videos and videos that they are featured in will be included, Perez reported.
If page admins do not activate the feature by Aug. 1, the social network will create separate official music pages on behalf of the artists, and those pages will be controlled by Facebook and accessible via Facebook Watch, as well as via a new music video destination that will be added to the social network’s platform, according to Perez.
She reported that Facebook said in an email to page admins that when it receives a new video from an artist’s label, that artist’s page will automatically share the video on its Timeline, reaching fan’s News Feeds, adding that the automatic-sharing setting can be disabled at any time.
According to Perez, artists that enable the setting are granting the social network permission to share aggregate performance insights such as comments, likes, shares, views and other engagement data with rightsholders.
Elements of those auto-generated posts that can be edited include description, tags, thumbnails and title, she added.
Facebook would not confirm any of the details, but it did point out that it already has a music video experience available in India and Thailand, with plans to expand availability in the coming weeks.
The social network has been working with music-industry partners on ways to incorporate music into how people connect and share on its platforms, including the availability of music stickers for Stories on Facebook and Instagram, as well as letting users include music in the background of videos they create and share.
And video continues to be an area of focus for the company moving forward.