Instagram Will Now Remove Live Streams Featuring Unlicensed Music

In addition to YouTube and Twitch, plenty of artists have been using Facebook and Instagram to go Live and share musical performances. Beginning this week, artists and teams will have to rethink how they go about their streams as Facebook (which bought Instagram in 2012) has instituted new guidelines on playing music on Live.

A new blog post from Instagram (which applies to Facebook, as well) outlines the new policies, pointing to their existing agreements with music rights holders.

“Our partnerships with rights holders have brought people together around music on our platforms. As part of our licensing agreements, there are limitations around the amount of recorded music that can be included in Live broadcasts or videos. While the specifics of our licensing agreements are confidential, today we’re sharing some general guidelines to 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.
• 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.

According to the guidelines, whether your IG Live DJ sets are interrupted appears to be dependent on the length of the tracks you play — so dubstep DJs might see more leeway here than trance or house DJs, who tend to play out longer songs in their mixes. DJs as a whole could be less affected than other artists, though.

You can read the full update and guidelines here.