Music can make a boring video interesting. But using music without permission, can be seen as a copyright infringement.
To ease its users in creating contents with sounds, Facebook is launching a listing of music tracks which users can use on their videos. Called ‘Sound Collection’, the tool includes a various audio options.
First of all, Facebook have removed any video uploaded that contains copyrighted music, in a move which is similar to YouTube. But instead of having its users figuring out on their own how to spice things up, the social giant is giving a selection of music it owns for users to use.
More than 1,000 tracks and 1,500 sound effects on Sound Collection are available for free, and not only for Facebook usage, but also on Instagram videos as well.
As explained by Facebook:
The social giant Facebook has been looking for a solution for this for years. In order to spice out videos uploaded by users, powering up engagement, it has been in negotiations to enable users to use Top 40 songs in their video since 2015.
Sound Collection however, doesn't have songs by artists and from most people's favorite stars. But still, it gives an option for creators, enabling them to include music without the fear of having their videos taken down due to copyright violations.
The sounds at Sound Collector, are mostly generic-sounding background music, which can be great for videos. Using Sound Collector, users can follow those they like and browse the sounds by genre, mood, length and also vocals. Some of the debut tracks include those from artists like singer-songwriter Kiri Tse, Indian percussionist Jim Santi Owen and guitarist and film composer Lyle Workman.
The choices can be an effective way to make videos more appealing. This can be especially handy to those that want to add some extra elements to their videos.
Initial tracks available in Sound Collection are seen as a starting point. What this means, if Facebook can reach an agreement with more musicians, Facebook could eventually adds more tracks to its library.
Another thing, Facebook is also launching a 360 Community to encourage creators in creatinging 360-degree videos for the platform.
This is in line with what Facebook has noted for more than several times, saying that video in the platform is the future, and VR is the next stage of that shift.
The page includes a range of resources to assist in the process, as well as connection to other creators and information on 360 cameras. What's more, Facebook is also launching 360 Director for Pages and profiles, providing more options for them to publish 360 content.
Facebook also plans to hold 360 Community meetups so creators can collaborate.
The 360 Director for Pages and profiles allows users to add text and graphic annotations to their videos, and guide where people should look with a default view that can move around as viewers watch if they don't scroll themselves. With this, Facebook is also expanding Player Controls, allowing creators to choose the zoom, direction and preview thumbnails. Creators can also save drafts for later if they want to make changes before uploading.