‘Why isn’t my music on Instagram?’ - 3 reasons why your music might be missing from Meta

It’s release day, at last! 

You’ve got a carefully-crafted plan for promoting your music across your social media accounts, starting with posting an Instagram Story announcing your release.

But you put together your Story, go to add your track from the Instagram music library, and…

… it’s not there.

It happens more often than you think - and it’s usually not anything you’ve done wrong, so don’t panic!

Keep reading to learn why your release might not be on Instagram or Facebook - and how you can keep adjust your promotional plans to make sure your release is still a success.

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Rights Management Platforms - what they are & why they exist

The root of the reason why your release might not be on Instagram or Facebook is that Meta platforms (Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp) are what the industry calls Rights Management Platforms.

So, what is a Rights Management Platform? At its core, a Rights Management Platform is a platform that supports the protection of a creator’s rights by identifying unauthorised duplicates of audio or video content. 

For musicians, that means those platforms create a fingerprint-like scan of your releases and compare that fingerprint to other releases - if the platform picks up a match, where all or part of your work is appearing in another audio upload, a conflict is raised and you’re given the opportunity to allow, block or monetise the use of your content.

Not every platform is a Rights Management Platform, however. Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music and most other streaming platforms do not have a Rights Management element - but YouTube (YouTube Content ID), Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud and Snap do.

The detection tools provided by those platforms are designed to help you protect your music and your earnings, so that other artists can’t copy your work and profit from it.

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Why your music might not be eligible for Rights Management Platforms

While Rights Management Platforms are there to help you protect and control usage of your music, the way they work (creating a digital audio fingerprint of your tracks) does mean that some content becomes ineligible for distribution to Rights Management Platforms.

Why? Because your tracks must be entirely distinct from other tracks to avoid resulting in Rights Management conflicts.

So, if your release isn’t live on Instagram, it probably falls into one of these three categories.

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Reason #1 / your track contains non-exclusive samples or beats

Using samples or beats in your tracks is fine, but you do need to bear in mind that those samples usually make your releases ineligible for distribution to Rights Management Platforms, including Instagram.

The sophisticated audio fingerprinting scans don’t just pick up when an exact match to your whole track is found. They pick up matching elements within tracks, too.

Which means that if you’ve used a sample, your track will conflict with everyone else who has used that same sample. You might have ‘royalty free’ usage of that sample - but unless you have an exclusive license to it, you’re likely not the only person using that same sample. 

Alex K has explained more about exclusive vs non-exclusive licenses and what they mean for Rights Management Platforms here, but the main point is: if your track uses a non-exclusive sample, it won’t be able to go live on Instagram or other Rights Management Platforms.

Reason #2 / your track is a cover or remix

A cover or a remix is not eligible for Rights Management Platforms, because it has significant audio overlap with the original version of the track.

To release a cover or remix to any platform, you need to have a license to do so - but that license will never grant you the necessary exclusive rights to that audio that you would need in order for the track to be eligible for Rights Management Platforms.

By their very nature, covers and remixes are sonically very similar to their originals. They’ll match with the original track as well as any other covers or remixes, causing unresolvable rights conflicts. If your track is a cover or remix, it won’t be live on Instagram or other Rights Management Platforms.

#3 / your track is ambient (or sonically indistinct) in nature

Tracks that fall into the ambient genre are often deemed ineligible for Rights Management Platforms simply because they don’t contain sonically distinct elements that allow audio fingerprinting tools to distinguish them from other ambient tracks.

While we understand that a lot of creativity goes into creating ambient music, tracks that don’t contain a distinct melody or rely heavily on nature sounds aren’t suitable for Rights Management Platforms, like Instagram, because they are highly likely to match with other tracks that use nature sounds or similar drone/synth progressions.

Ambient music that contains melodic elements, like wordless vocals or original piano melodies, may be eligible for Rights Management Platforms - but as a rule of thumb, ambient music is generally not suitable for platforms like Instagram and therefore won’t be live there.

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What to do if your release is missing from Instagram

If you find that you can’t use your music in your Story or Post on Instagram (or Facebook), the first step is to not panic. While sharing your music directly on social media is a great promotional tactic, it’s not the only way to get release day streams.

Next, consider whether your music really should be on Instagram. If it falls into any of the following categories, it’s likely that your music isn’t eligible for Rights Management Platforms and missing from Instagram isn’t simply an administrative error. Your music is likely ineligible if it is:

• A track using samples or beats that you don’t hold a fully exclusive license for;
• A cover or remix of an existing song;
• An ambient or new age track that doesn’t have a sufficiently distinct melody or uses nature sounds.

If you don’t believe your track falls into any of those categories, reach out to your distributor to check that your release has been distributed to Instagram. Occasionally, it may just be that your track isn’t showing for you in the music library search results but is actually there! Your distributor should be able to send you a direct link to the audio that you can save and use on your social media posts.

If your track does fall into one of those categories and therefore isn’t live on Instagram, you don’t have to throw your entire promotional plan out of the window!

Even if you can’t share your music directly on your social media posts, you can still create engaging content that encourages fans to click on a link in your Story or go to your bio link. Make sure you’ve got a fan link ready to go so your fans can click straight through to their favourite streaming platform, and you’re all set.

In fact, not being able to share your music directly on social media can sometimes be more beneficial for release day streams. If a fan can’t get a taste for your new track directly on Instagram, they have to click through to Spotify or another streaming service - which makes it more likely that they’ll save, add to their library, or add to a playlist, all of which are more beneficial for your longer-term music career than a flippant link on Instagram.