Facebook and record label Universal Music Group have signed a multiyear deal that will let Facebook users share videos that have the label's music in them.
Right now, if Facebook's regular users upload videos that contain Universal's music, the videos will get taken down. Universal, a unit of French media conglomerate Vivendi SA, has rights to music from artists including Jay-Z, Rihanna, Bruce Springsteen and Justin Bieber.
The companies did not say when users would be able to share music in videos on platforms owned by Facebook. They hinted that more music features could be coming.
Facebook declined to comment about its music strategy beyond the press release. Universal also declined to comment.
Facebook is trying to get people to watch and share more videos.
YouTube, the world's largest destination for online video, sells music-streaming subscriptions, but Spotify and Apple Music are thought to be more popular.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More