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September 14, 2020 by Leo Olebe

As creators and entertainers, we know you want to play music during your gaming livestreams - and not just any old music, but music people know, that will get them HYPED as they watch. At the same time, you probably realize, or have heard from elsewhere that music rights are complex and hard to understand.

Instead of suggesting you go to music law school to figure it all out, we want to make the whole process a lot easier so you can focus on being a great streamer, and not a rights specialist.

That’s why we’re partnering with the music industry to open up a vast catalogue of popular music for Facebook Gaming Partners to play while livestreaming games. Our work with music labels, publishers and societies, including Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Kobalt Music Group, BMG publishing, Merlin and many partners means you're able to include a vast amount of music across a variety of genres - current pop hits, dance floor beats, hip hop, 80s classics and much more.

While Facebook Gaming partners are getting front row seats to this feature, we’re still working to get backstage passes for Level Up creators so you can have the same experience soon.

Regardless of whether you’re a seasoned partner or a new Level Up creator, there are always some things to keep in mind when it comes to music on gaming streams. We’ll be back with more specifics as we build more, but for now, keep the following in mind.

Yes! All creators have access to a library of custom music and sound effects at no cost using Facebook’s Sound Collection. The Sound Collection includes thousands of tracks available to use in the videos you share on Facebook and Instagram without any limits – spanning genres like hip hop, pop, jazz, country, and more.

We’re rolling this out first with partnered creators, but we can’t wait to enable it for all gaming creators. In the meantime, please continue to use Sound Collection for royalty-free music options.

Rights for music are complex; they vary based on territory and are subject to change. The specifics of our licensing agreements are also confidential, so we’re unable to disclose which songs are not covered, making this answer wholly unsatisfying. But there’s good news because…

Restricted tracks are rare, but do exist. If your video is muted or blocked, we’ll notify you of the section of your video that’s matching a song to make it clear what actions you can take to avoid interruptions during future streams.

Check your most recent notifications or email for additional details regarding why a particular stream was affected. If a restricted track is played, you’ll get notified and we suggest avoiding the track in question from any future stream. If you feel that the copyright flag was applied incorrectly, you can raise this with gaming support via fb.gg/support.

Here’s the primary one: your stream should be about gaming, not music. In other words, you’re okay to stream music as long as it’s in the background, with game sound effects and your voice (and anything else) over the top. Playing DJ without gaming is a no-no.

Our agreements cover your livestreamed videos, and the on-demand versions of those same livestreams. For clips, short clips (like the kind your viewers may make from your streams) are also covered. Long, edited videos that you might upload separately are not covered. You cannot use any music you like on those videos; we’d recommend Facebook Sound Collection instead. And, we get it, it’s still fairly complex, so here’s some more general guidelines that might be helpful.

You are free to play music from your preferred source; for example, your preferred subscription service or downloads from your personal music collection. We’re always looking for new integration and partnership opportunities, and we’ll keep you posted as new things become available.

Music rights vary around the world, and we’ve worked hard to secure licenses that cover more than 90 countries.