If you’ve ever used an automated video creation app, you’re likely familiar with the rather poor options available for soundtracking your work – low-quality, public-domain jingles are often what you get.
Starting this fall, that’s going to change for users of Canva, one of the world’s most popular graphic design platforms and described as “the world’s first all-in-one visual communication platform”.
The Australia-headquartered company announced on Thursday a first-of-its-kind partnership with Warner Music Group (MWG) and Merlin, the digital music licensing organization for indie labels and distributors, that will bring commercial music to Canva’s asset library starting this fall.
Users of Canva’s premium tier, Canva Pro, as well as users of Canva for Education and Canva for Non-Profit, will be able to add songs from WMG’s catalog, or the catalogs of indie rights holders represented by Merlin, to their videos or other media presentations. The company plans to roll the feature out to users of Canva for Teams at a later date.
Rights holders will earn royalties when clips of their songs appear in published videos made with Canva.
Canva is often used to quickly produce videos for TikTok, YouTube or other video services. It’s also commonly used for businesses’ training videos, slideshows and other presentations. The music feature will be accessible to Canva users in the US, Europe, Brazil, Canada and Australia.
“Music is such a fundamental expression of creativity, and offers an inspirational starting point for many,” Silvia Oviedo, Head of Content, Discovery & Print at Canva, said in a statement.
“We are thrilled to welcome Warner Music Group and Merlin to the Canva content ecosystem, and can’t wait to see what millions of music fans, content creators, educators and beyond design using content from their favorite artists.”
“At Warner Music Group we are focused on being at the forefront of music innovation,” Jessica Goldenberg, SVP, Digital Strategy & Business Development at WMG, said in a statement.
“This collaboration with Canva will provide new opportunities for our artists to increase their reach and engage their fans, while also empowering Canva’s creator community to elevate their designs with our robust catalog. Together with Canva, we look forward to shaping the future of visual communication by enabling creativity in ways that are uniquely achievable with music.”
Andrew Ludwick, Vice President of Business Development, Digital, at Warner Chappell Music, said: “Warner Chappell is proud to have our song catalog included in Canva’s music launch. Along with generating compelling new revenue streams for our songwriters, this innovative new partnership will unlock the power of music for individual designers, presenters, and educators.”
“This collaboration with Canva will provide new opportunities for our artists to increase their reach and engage their fans, while also empowering Canva’s creator community to elevate their designs with our robust catalog.”
Jessica Goldenberg, Warner Music Group
Merlin CEO Jeremy Sirota added: “We are excited to partner with Canva, a dynamic platform that empowers creativity and self-expression. Merlin prides itself on being a market leader in bringing independent music to new discovery platforms — this partnership with Canva will allow creators to connect with the vast array of Merlin member music from around the world.
“This is yet another significant milestone in Merlin’s commitment to drive the evolution of the digital music landscape and open up new forms of revenue opportunities for our members.”
Launched in 2013, Canva has built a user base of around 135 million by offering creators a simple one-stop shop for producing videos or other media for social platforms. Users navigate an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface, and have access to resources such as templates, a font library, stock photo and video footage, illustrations and audio clips.
Canva says its users create an average of 250 new designs every second.
“This is yet another significant milestone in Merlin’s commitment to drive the evolution of the digital music landscape and open up new forms of revenue opportunities for our members.”
Jeremy Sirota, Merlin
The company has rolled out a number of AI-powered tools, including Beat Sync, which helps users match their video to the beat of a selected song, as well as a text-to-image tool that allows users to verbally describe the graphic they want to an AI engine that then automatically generates the image.
The company has also announced it plans to compete directly with Google and Microsoft in the office software space. In late 2022 it launched Magic Write, an AI-powered copywriting assistant.Music Business Worldwide
