This document describes a solution for overcoming the limitations of existing VPLS multicast solutions. It describes procedures for VPLS multicast that utilize multicast trees in the sevice provider (SP) network. One such multicast tree can be shared between multiple VPLS instances. Procedures by which a single multicast tree in the backbone can be used to carry traffic belonging only to a specified set of one or more multicast groups from one or more VPLSs are also described.