Facebook Looking For An In-House Composer

It looks like you can expect a lot more from Facebook in 2017 in more ways than one. The company is advertising for an in-house composer to add to its in-house sound design team. According to the advert:

The in-house Music Composer role requires 10+ years of professional experience in the music industry, plus experience in ProTools and the ability to “work closely with a wide variety of sound artists”.

“CANDIDATES MUST HAVE EXCEPTIONAL COMPOSITION SKILLS AND MASTERY OF MODERN PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES. THE ROLE COMBINES MUSICAL RECORDING AND COMPOSITION CHALLENGES WITH PROJECT MANAGEMENT LEADERSHIP.”

The link turns out to be dead, which either suggests that the position is now filled, or that it was getting to much visibility. Facebook is under fire for still not having a way for artists, labels and publishers to get paid for songs and videos that are played on the network, so everyone is a little chagrined at the fact that the company is trying to develop what looks to be in-house production music first.

That said, rumors still persist that 2017 will be the year that FB finally puts their own version of YouTube’s Content ID in place, which will compensate creators when their works are played on the platform.

This is much more problematic than it sounds given the fact that Facebook measures video views much more liberally than YouTube, so potentially it will be paying out more as a result, even if the royalty rate is the same as YouTube. The royalty will undoubtedly be higher though, since the music industry views YouTube’s 45% cut way too high and out of line with the other delivery systems, so any license from the major labels or publishers will no doubt go beyond that rate.

That said, it should be interesting to see exactly what Facebook has in mind for its new composer in residence, and how the sound design team will be implemented.