FACEBOOK CLICKS LIKE ON LABELS, JOINING YOUTUBE CHALLENGERS

In its attempt to find ways to work with the music industry and take on YouTube, Facebook has started talks with labels about licensing a limited amount of songs for homemade videos. Warner Music Group has confirmed that it is part of the test project.

Mark Zuckerberg’s social network will allow users to place WMG- copyrighted recordings on its new product, Slideshow, the New York Post reported.

The move comes at a time when labels, managers and artists are finding fault with YouTube over royalty rates and the amount of unlicensed user-generated content on the site. Jeff Bezos’ Amazon announced last week its Video Direct service as a YouTube competitor, and Irving Azoff issued an open letter to YouTube expressing his and artists’ concerns about the site.

Snapchat and Twitter are also expected to explore ways to siphon off some of the revenue generated through videos online. The online field that YouTube dominates is quite lucrative: The Google-owned video site pulls in an estimated $8.5 billion annually.

In a related story, there's a video of a miniature donkey desperately in need of a cool sync.