PremiumNew Delhi: Homegrown short-video platform Moj has signed a “multi-year" licensing deal with music label T-Series, allowing the platform access to the labels’ music library.
The company had announced a similar deal with multiple music labels, including Times Music and Zee Music, in October last year, but is the first to ink long-term music licensing agreement with a label.
“With this partnership we can drive more value to the industry, support more artists and deliver an incredible creative experience to our users across India," said Farid Ahsan, chief operating officer and co-founder of Mohalla Tech, the parent company of Moj, said. “This long-term license reciprocates both of our intent to support the creator economy and build a robust foundation for the creator-led content ecosystem in the country," said Bhushan Kumar, Managing Director of T-Series.
As reported by Mint in October, India’s short-video industry was expected to invest up to ₹200 crore per platform per year on licensing deals with music labels. Such deals are a key part of running short-video platforms. The music used by creators on the platforms is supplied by the short-video apps, which makes them liable to legal cases for copyright infringement.
Four music labels, including T-Series, had sent copyright infringement notices to various Indian short video platforms shortly after the TikTok ban last year. “Many content sharing mobile applications such as Roposo, Triller, Takatak (MX Player), Josh, Mitron, Snack Video etc are taking advantage of TikTok’s ban in India and to gain immediate success are using popular music, most of which belongs to T- Series without our permission," Neeraj Kalyan, President of T-Series told Mint at the time.
Social media giant, Facebook, had also said it would be leveraging existing tie-ups with labels like T-Series, Zee Music Company and Yash Raj Films to provide music on Reels, which is the company’s short-video platforms built inside Instagram.
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