Instagram Now Makes It Easier to See When You’re Using Copyrighted Music

Instagram has today released guidelines for using copyrighted music in live streams, stories, and posts. The platform is also making some changes to how pop-up notifications appear when someone uses copyrighted music or art in their stream.

If you don’t stream live on Instagram often, you probably don’t know how this works. Up until now, Instagram used to sometimes interrupt streams, or mute parts of them if they contained copyrighted music. However, the platform now has better notifications to inform users if their stream contains copyrighted content. Pop-up notifications on live-streams will now prompt users if their stream is likely to be muted or shut down due to usage of licensed content. This way, users can fix any issues before Instagram needs to take the stream down.

Instagram’s Guidelines for Including Music in Videos

The company is trying to make it clearer how recorded music works on the platform. In its blog post announcing the guidelines, Instagram gives out the following pointers around the usage of music:

• There are no limits on things like music in Stories, or traditional musical performances (e.g. filming a live artist or band performing).
• The greater the number of full-length recorded tracks in a video, the more likely it may be limited (more below on what we mean by “limited”).
• For that reason, shorter clips of music are recommended.
• There should always be a visual component to your video; recorded audio should not be the primary purpose of the video.

The blog also points out that users can use Facebook’s Sound Collection for their posts and stories. These sounds are available to users free of cost and without limitations, so they can be safely used without licensing woes.

As we continue living in a quarantine, Instagram is naturally one of the apps we use more often. The app has become a great place to check out your favourite creators and artists host live streams. Or you can see some great wellness guides on the platform. That said, it’s obviously important for the company to ensure it doesn’t infringe on copyright content. Hopefully these new guidelines and the improvements to notifications will make it easier for creators to continue making great content.