Important change is afoot at social media big Twitter.

Inside every week of closing his $44 billion acquisition of the corporate, Elon Musk has began implementing a serious overhaul on the platform.

Musk, on October 27, completed his go-private takeover of Twitter. He then proceeded to make sweeping modifications on the firm together with widespread layoffs and the official announcement of a brand new subscription service known as Twitter Blue, which can price $7.99 month-to-month, for a verification checkmark and different options.

Twitter’s upcoming modifications by a music business lens, some of the fascinating updates of all is the information that Musk plans to supply monetization to “content material creators” by way of a brand new (as-of-yet unspecified) revenue-sharing mannequin.

Musk, in an interview on the Baron Funding Convention on Friday (November 4), stated that he’s contemplating introducing long-form movies on Twitter and permitting creators to monetize their content material — in what may show to be a transfer to problem platforms comparable to YouTube that function revenue-sharing fashions for creators.

“We will additionally begin sharing income with content material creators, which is important,” Musk instructed Ron Baron, founder, Chairman and CEO of Baron Capital.

Musk then criticized Twitter’s present lack of ability to host its personal longer-form movies.

He famous that, to this point, numerous posts on the platform hyperlink out to YouTube and TikTok as a result of Twitter doesn’t provide customers enough on-platform video lengths to submit their clips.

For content material creators, that in flip means no technique to monetize their movies on Twitter.

“We’re going to change that quickly at Twitter. That’s going to be transformative,” the Tesla and SpaceX founder instructed Baron.

In a tweet following his look on the convention, Musk confirmed that “Twitter may also quickly add [the] capacity to connect long-form textual content to tweets, ending the absurdity of notepad screenshots”.

In a follow-up tweet over the weekend, he famous that this will likely be “Adopted by creator monetization for all types of content material”.

Musk didn’t elaborate on his revenue-sharing plans for content material creators, but it surely may pave the way in which for Twitter to develop into a severe new income supply for music rightsholders, artists, and creators.

Twitter and the music business have lengthy had a fractious relationship, with the platform usually criticized for turning a blind eye to music copyright infringement.

Again in February, the IFPI branded Twitter as “a major concern to the music business”.

“Twitter shops and provides the general public entry to a considerable amount of copyright-protected content material and is a serious platform for distributing infringing music content material, each audio and video,” the IFPI stated in its subsmission to the EU Counterfeit and Piracy Watchlist Session on the time.

Final 12 months, a bipartisan group of over US lawmakers despatched a letter to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who was CEO on the time, demanding the social media platform address its lack of music licenses.

In December 2020, the RIAA suggested throughout a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Mental Property listening to that infringement on Twitter equates to “piracy on an industrial huge scale”.

Earlier this 12 months, when information about Musk’s Twitter acquisition began to emerge, Amusica Music Administration CEO Ran Geffen requested in an MBW op/ed if Elon Musk was set to “save the music business”, by democratizing the way in which music is licensed.

It’s truthful to say that the prospect of Musk single-handedly ‘saving’ the music business raised a couple of bewildered reader responses on the time.

But it’s definitely true that the launch of monetized music content material on Twitter – by way of the brand new much-debated Twitter Blue subscription mannequin – may present a severe new income stream for music rights-holders amid a difficult wider international financial local weather.

Elon Musk additionally instructed Baron over the weekend that he was bullish about Twitter’s industrial future, saying it “may very well be some of the invaluable firms on the earth”.

In the meantime, Particulars about Twitter Blue, which can price $7.99 per 30 days, have appeared on the Twitter’s app page on the Apple App Retailer, stating the next:

Beginning at present, we’re including nice new options to Twitter Blue, and have extra on the way in which quickly.

Get Twitter Blue for $7.99/month if you happen to join now

Blue checkmark: Energy to the folks: Your account will get a blue checkmark, identical to the celebrities, firms, and politicians you already comply with.

The replace is on the market to iOS customers within the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

Twitter additionally hinted at new upcoming options for Twitter Blue subscribers together with diminished advertisements, precedence rating for replies, mentions and searches, and the flexibility to submit longer movies.

The launch of Twitter Blue additionally comes as Musk seeks to weed out spams, bots and trolls on the platform, in addition to organizations that try to govern public opinion.

The reply to that problem, in response to Musk, is “to get as many common customers on Twitter to be a subscriber for $8 a month.”

Music Enterprise Worldwide