Facebook has clarified its guidelines for including music in videos and made improvements to copyright infringement notifications during live broadcasts.
We all love music, and people love using music on their favorite social networks. However, many of us are confused by Facebook’s guidelines in relation to how recorded music can be used in Live, on both Facebook and Instagram.
That’s why Facebook is now clarifying its guidelines to help users avoid problems, and improving in-app notifications during live broadcasts to give users more time to respond before having their sound cut off.
Facebook says it wants “to encourage musical expression” on its platform while at the same time making sure that it can keep in line with its agreements with rights holders. It is those agreements that have “brought people together around music” on its platforms, but there are limitations regarding the amount of recorded music that can be included in Live broadcasts or videos.
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The following general guidelines will help you plan your videos better:
- 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 guidelines are the same across live and recorded videos – on Facebook and Instagram – and apply for all types of accounts, i.e. pages, profiles, as well as verified and unverified accounts. If your video includes recorded music, you may not be able to use it around the world, as Facebook hasn’t rolled out its music feature everywhere yet.
You can, however, access Facebook’s Sound Collection, for free. The tool includes thousands of tracks that are available to use in videos shared on Facebook and Instagram. There are no limits to the use of these tracks.
In addition to the above, Facebook has made a change to how it notifies users who are broadcasting music that is potentially problematic. It’s annoying to have your stream interrupted, or have some parts of your audio muted because it contains copyrighted music, so Facebook is minimizing interruptions and making notifications clearer and surfacing them earlier in live broadcasters.
This gives live streamers the time to adjust their streams without getting interrupted. Also, if a video is muted or blocked, Facebook now makes it clearer what actions someone needs to take to stop the interruption.