“Italian Songwriters’ Music Returns to Facebook and Instagram After License Dispute Victory”

After Meta had removed thousands of songs by Italian artists from its Facebook and Instagram platforms in response to an ongoing license dispute, the group has now reached an agreement with the Italian collecting society SIAE.

When the license agreement between Meta and the Italian society of authors and publishers, SIAE, expired at the beginning of 2023, the SIAE tech group struck new license agreement before. However, after the collecting society did not want to agree to this, Meta removed the music of the artists organized in the SIAE from its Facebook and Instagram platforms.

ambiguities between the parties

In a press statement at the time, SIAE stated that Meta had asked them to accept their license agreement without a transparent, joint assessment of SIAE’s repertoire and its relevance to social media platforms.

Meta, on the other hand, testified that SIAE refused to accept the offer because they had asked for a profit increase of 310 percent compared to the last closed deal.

SIAE then stated that the new license was not simply comparable to the one previously signed in 2020. The old license was closed with Facebook, not with Meta; there was no connection to the Metaverse, for example. A percentage comparison is not appropriate here. In addition, the collecting society was open to further negotiations.

A positive twist

After the subsequent renewed negotiations with Meta, the SIAE now expresses its satisfaction with the outcome, but emphasizes that the result is initially a transitional agreement.

The collecting society wants to continue to work for a final and lasting agreement “on the basis of fairness and transparency”, as it would also be required in the EU directive on copyright. However, the songs of the artists represented by the SIAE would return to the meta platforms for the time being.