Facebook and Instagram Update Music Guidelines and It’s Bad News For Live Streams

Facebook has issued new music guidelines that also cover Instagram and other Facebook platforms as part of an update to its Terms Of Service set to take effect on October 1st 2020.

Those guidelines put clear restrictions on music uses, including:

• You are responsible for the content you post
• You may not use videos on our Products to create a music listening experience
• Unauthorized content may be removed
• You may not be able to post or access videos containing music in every country of the world

Every video that is posted on social media is pre-scanned and checked for any infringing content before the video shows up on your Timeline or Newsfeed. If the video you’re posting contains any infringing content, it won’t be published and you will receive a warning.

Facebook’s music policy now states – We want you to be able to enjoy videos posted by family and friends. However, if you use videos on our Products to create a music listening experience for yourself or for others, your videos will be blocked and your page, profile or group may be deleted. This includes Live. If you post content that contains music owned by someone else, your content may be blocked, or may be reviewed by the applicable rights owner and removed if your use of that music is not properly authorized.

So your still ok to post the video of your dog running after the cat around the garden, just not “certain” music or certain live videos which may contain music.