“VKontakte” have concluded a licensing agreement with major Merlin Network. It is independent of indie artists who prefer not to work with musical giants.
Thus “Vkontakte” legalized audio and video content 20,000 labels from 51 countries, which are including such world artists as Arctic Monkeys, Bonobo and Franz Ferdinand. The agreement extends to other projects Mail.Ru Group — “Classmates” and “My world”.
Earlier, in 2015 and in the spring and summer of 2016, “Vkontakte” have already signed a similar agreement with the world’s largest majors Universal Music, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music. According to the website Statista, by the end of 2015, these companies, as well as EMI controlled 73,2% of the world market of sound.
“Most comprehensive music catalogue and the ability to satisfy any musical requests are important criteria for the development of licensed online music market in Russia. Agreement with Merlin solves this problem by using one of the licenses,” said the CEO of the social network, Boris Dobrodeyev.
Merlin Network brings together independent musicians, the so-called indie artists who mostly do not cooperate with giants like Universal and Sony to have more freedom to distribute their works. As noted by Rbc, song, indie artists often laid out in the Internet for free download. According to its own data Merlin, the volume directory of the members of the Agency is more than 12% of the world market of a sound recording.
Legalization by-agreement with global majors allowed “Vkontakte” to return to the music section in the app for iPhone and iPad.
