In corona times: live streaming music stopped on social media

In conjunction with the corona pandemic, large parts of Sweden's cultural and musical life are now moving online. Many initiatives have been started to break the isolation and create opportunities for people to access music in the form of live broadcast gigs on social media.

But the live streaming gigs can violate the social media giants' copyright rules.

Daniel Josefsson is one of the initiators of the Facebook page Bring it home, which in collaboration with Sonika studio and the booking company MTA, wants to facilitate for musicians affected by the corona crisis in the form of canceled gigs.

Every day since its inception just over two weeks ago, artists have been playing live through the site for between 20 to 30,000 viewers, he says.

But on Monday it suddenly stopped.

- That's when the first shutdown of the site came. The first thing I thought was, "It must be a misunderstanding." The error message we received stated that we were dealing with fraudulent behavior and misleading information, says Daniel Josefsson.

Daniel Josefsson heard from Facebook's support and after a while the page was up again. But after a live stream on Tuesday night, it stopped again.

- We were shut down again the night between Tuesday and Wednesday. Since then, the page is down and we haven't heard any more.

According to Facebook's rules for music, users are not allowed to share anything on the platform that contains music owned by someone else, as it violates copyright. Doing so may block or remove the shared content.

But even if the live music is performed by the creator himself, there is no guarantee that it will remain.

According to Daniel Josefsson, Bring it home is not the only social media site that has been shut down as a result of live streaming. This is what Daniel Josefsson thinks is problematic, especially now that many people are in quarantine and have limited opportunity to reach out or share music.

- I think it is important that we have strong copyright laws, but if they start to shut down livestreams, it means strangling the only way for musicians to reach their audience. There are other standalone platforms you can use, but there you do not reach as many people.

- We had ten thousand followers that we can't reach right now. And if the same thing happens to an artist, then you lose not only revenue but also contact with your audience.

The cultural news searches Facebook for a comment.