Snapchat has struck a deal with Sony Music Entertainment to include the major record company’s artists’ music in the app’s library of licensed music.
This deal means that Snapchat now has partnerships in place with all three major labels.
In addition to the three major labels, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, Snap’s music partners include MERLIN Members, major publishers Sony Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group and Warner Chappell, plus Kobalt, BMG, NMPA members, DistroKid, and what Snap says, is “thousands of individual songwriters / music publishers”.
Snapchat’s Sounds feature, which lets users add music to their Snaps, was launched in October 2020.
Snapchat reports that videos created with music from Sounds on the platform have collectively resulted in nearly 1.2 billion videos created and nearly 77 billion views.
Snapchat also says that over 200 million users are engaging with the augmented reality features on its platform every day and that it will now be expanding the music experience on the app by adding Sounds into its AR Lenses available in the app’s ‘Lens Carousel’.
In addition, Snapchat says that it will soon be rolling out features such as ‘Sound Lenses’ with a pre-selected song embedded into the Lens, “a Lens that transforms pictures of anyone to appear as if they are singing a song”, and ‘Cameo Sound Lenses’, which the company says will “apply visual effects to put you and a friend as the stars of your own animated music video”.
The social media platform says that its new Sound Lenses “will make for a more immersive music experience, and open a proven and powerful way for artists to share music on Snapchat”.
Sony Music has previously used Snap’s AR tools as part of a partnership that saw an AR Lens used to support the launch of Kygo’s collaboration with Whitney Houton for her unreleased version of Higher Love.
Other partnered Lenses with Sony Music artists include Calvin Harris and Rag’n’Bone Man’s Giant, which snapchat says, resulted in 90 million creations and 1 billion views; and G-Eazy and Halsey’s Him and I, which resulted in 61 million creations and 750 million views.
“We are pleased to be expanding our relationship with Snap to develop new commercial opportunities for our artists around short form video and augmented reality experiences.”
Dennis Kooker, Sony Music Entertainment
Dennis Kooker, President, Global Digital Business, Sony Music Entertainment, said: “We are pleased to be expanding our relationship with Snap to develop new commercial opportunities for our artists around short form video and augmented reality experiences.
“Through this agreement, our artists have more ways to connect with fans and enhance engagement in their music by enabling their songs to be part of the Lens and Sounds tools that support communication and creative expression among Snapchat’s users.”
“Our new deal with Sony Music marks a major milestone as Snap now has partnerships with all the major labels, in addition to networks of independent labels and emerging artists.”
Ben Schwerin, Snap
Ben Schwerin, Snap’s Senior Vice President of Content and Partnerships, said: “Our new deal with Sony Music marks a major milestone as Snap now has partnerships with all the major labels, in addition to networks of independent labels and emerging artists.
“We’re excited to further integrate Sounds into our AR Lenses to provide artists a proven and powerful way to share their music, and create immersive new experiences for our community.”Music Business Worldwide