When you post something on social media, something you created; be it a story, a graphic design, a makeup tutorial, a comical video, a picture capturing your talents and so on, it’s out there. It can be seen and accessed by individuals in your friend list, accounts that follow you and even individuals who do not (considering we all love taking some screen shots!). While this gets you likes, comments, fame and what not it also brings you risk. What sort of risk? The risk of your talent being stolen from you without your permission. Often times, startup companies take the wrong short cut to success. Instead of hiring their own designers for example, many printing companies begin to look around Instagram and many other social media applications. Then, once the collect pictures without consent or prior warning, they begin to sell them. Surely, this could have happened to you as well. Imagine this- In high school you took a poetry class and wrote a piece for an assignment. Of course you were praised for being clever with your words. You decide to share your original piece on your social media to help any one else draw inspiration from it or even appreciate it. Once you do, however, the next day you see your poem being shared by someone else in your friend list without any prior permission or mention of the author. Of course, you can choose not to share your work on social media at all. Because putting any information on cyber media is a risk of its own. However, copyrighting is something that diffuses this risk. Just like that, Instagram copyrights music. What does that really mean? You are going to have to read ahead to find out!
Instagram has been around since 8 years now. This application that began as a small project with only 12 employees has expanded itself quite fast. This Facebook, Inc. owned application has become popular around the globe. Why? Because unlike many social media applications, Instagram lets you do more than just type instant messages and send them around. Instagram lets its users bring out their creative side. Instagram is a unique application that involves sharing pictures, videos and other media sources by Instagram account holders. These media posts can either be original or re-posted- where Instagram users simply share what another Instagram account has shared on their profile. While Instagram has now allowed its users to indulge in instant messaging and upload stories about their experiences with a deadline of 24 hours only, the focus of Instagram remains the former. However, Instagram has had its quota of issues over the years. In this case, we do not mean glitches but stolen work.
When you make a video for any platform, you add your own content to it. However, there might be parts where you need to add music or an audio file to make sure your videos are not boring, interesting and gives off an eye-catching effect. Say, you went for a hike on a dangerous destination. You capture yourself hiking and defeating chances of you falling off. Now, if you upload your video as it is, you might not receive as much engagement from fellow Instagram users. In order to make it appealing, you might opt for adding an audio file to set off the extra background noises and keep the content entertaining. However, the next day you find your content missing. You get an email from Instagram telling you that the content you uploaded was deleted because of using copyrighted music without permission. Now, what does copyright even mean?
Copyrights stand for a legal right of a certain company, individual, organization, or any creator of an original content. This legal right is constructed by a country in order to clarify that the original content produced by the creator is their possession. In that case, only the creator has the authority to share the content on any platform as well as distribute it among users. For example, Taylor Swift makes a new song. Taylor Swift’s original song is copyrighted. If someone on Instagram adds her song to their video without consulting the legal team of Taylor Swift or purchasing the copyrights, then, that content will be removed. This is how Instagram copyrights music. However, Instagram has not always practiced regulating the content shared on Instagram.
Instagram’s copyrights rules were slightly different. If for example, you share a video of you and your friends on a walk early in the morning with Coldplay in the background, your content will not be removed. According to previous Instagram’s policy any video or picture content that has not been reported for violating copyrights, will remain for viewership and engagement by Instagram users. Only when someone from the legal team of Coldplay, Coldplay himself or even a friend or a foe reports your content for copyright issues or plagiarism, Instagram will look into it. Once Instagram reviews the content between 10-15 business days and confirms from the figure who reported the content, Instagram will proceed to remove the content due to copyrights issue. Still, in many cases, Instagram had been widely criticized for being unable to regular its copyrights issues. Because if a content is not reported for violating copyrights, the Instagram user in question is free to share or sell that product. In many cases, Individuals who used Instagram for business do upload their original work such as pictures of their paintings, interior designs and so on could not copyright their work on Instagram. A famous case here is of a photographer back in 2014 who noticed his photography skills being shared by Vogue Spain without prior permission or any credits. Similar cases emerged over the years and Instagram suffered numerous legal cases.
Instagram then decided to tackle the matter of copyrights. Instagram came up with smart algorithms to detect any material uploaded by its users. They began to scan content for copyrights issue. While this new technique is indecisive with regards to pictorial content, it is very effective with copyrighted music. This unofficial and hidden copyrights rule was kept from disclosure. Instagram quietly began taking down videos with copyrighted music and sending email notifications to uploaders in return. Why does Instagram copyrights music? If you add copyrighted music to your video content, depending on how you long you played the music for, it can be detected as means to profit from content that you do not own.
While Instagram copyrights music, individuals who are warned about the content removal procedure do have the option to appeal when they first get a notification. What does appeal in this sense mean? Instagram basically asks for evidence that you can provide to demonstrate that you have the permission to use the music content in your videos. After that you simply add your digital signatures and click on appeal. However, this is problematic in an obvious sense. Many uploaders will not have the permission to upload videos with that specific track. In addition to that, not many Instagram users will opt for purchasing copyrights to use the music. Hence, they will not appeal and choose to remove the video instead. This strict measure has had its criticisms as well. In many videos, for example uploading a videotaped birthday wish for a friend, you might want to add some music track in the background or play a few minutes in the beginning or the end. But, because Instagram copyrights music now, this will be impossible.
An alternative to this new rule then, is to use music that is not copyrighted. If you switch to YouTube videos you will notice that the music and audio tracks in the videos did not lead to the removal of the video. That is because the video makers did not violate any copyrights law. While you can also opt for giving credit to the artist, that has proven not very helpful in many situations.
This new Instagram copyrights policy for using copyrighted music in your videos has interrupted the activities of various video makers on Instagram. Even though videos are not known as the actual essence of Instagram when compared to pictures, there have been enormous complaints and queries about the sudden removal of videos from Instagram. Users have become furious for being unable to avoid one-dimensional video content. If you are someone who knows how to compose their own music, you have the legal right to use it in your videos. Nevertheless, many Instagram users do not have the time, resources, skills or energy to take long measures. This then sums up the question established int he beginning of this article. This is how Instagram copyrights music. We hope that you have found your explanation, answer to your confusions and queries int he end. If you still wish to upload creative or comical videos on Instagram, be mindful of the latest copyrights policy and the algorithms. You will not be pleased if you worked hard to shoot a video simply to have it removed in the end!
Meghan 
Michelle