Is it legal to put music on Instagram Stories?

// Article Last reviewed on2 November, 2022

Instagram is one of the most widely used social networks in the world, with a total of 100 million monthly active users. Since its creation in 2010, the functions and options for publishing content have been changing and evolving. A clear example of this are videos, with the possibility of publishing them in different formats: “stories”, “reels” and publication in the “feed”.

Recently, they have become very relevant in terms of improving the quality of content and gaining more followers. In fact, most influencers publish daily content in these three media, such as dance trends or brand advertising.

If we analyse them, we will discover that most of them are accompanied by background music according to the subject of the video, making it more entertaining, dynamic and attractive: the perfect icing on the cake to reach more people with their content.

So, you may now be thinking about adding music to your Instagram videos frequently, but whether you have a personal account or a business account, using the perfect song for your videos is not as easy as it sounds.

For copyright reasons, Instagram may mute or even remove your content if you use copyrighted music.

To prevent these problems, here’s how you can add music to Instagram’s three video formats, starting with stories.

When uploading a video to Instagram stories, it is possible to play it with its own background sound, delete it or add a song to accompany it.

For the latter option, Instagram offers a system that consists of the following steps:

1. First, open the application, click on the square button at the top right of the screen, and in the bar that will appear at the bottom of the screen, select “stories” by swiping to the left.
   
2. Record a video of what you would like to publish at that moment or select one from your gallery.
3. Then click on the smiley face sticker at the top right of the screen. Different stickers will appear with options to add to your story, but you must select the one with the music.
   
4. A large library of songs will appear, but you can also search for a specific song by typing its name in the search bar.
5. When you have chosen one, the name of the song and its artist will appear in the middle of the screen and a specific part of the song will play. However, you can select the part you want to use in your video by dragging the playback bar from one side to the other.
6. The last step is to choose the style and design of the song sticker: square with an image or just the title of the song and the artist. It is also possible to add the lyrics of the song in different styles.
7. Once you have chosen one, click on the “done” button. You can move it to either side of the screen, make it smaller or bigger, or even make it disappear by dragging it all the way down the screen.

Now you can publish your stories with background music, making them more eye-catching in a safe way.

If you have any doubts you can watch our Youtube Video, which explains step by step how to do it easily.

How to add music to Instagram reels?

Reels are the second tool we present in this post for posting videos on Instagram. Here’s how to add background music:

1. The first step, as with the stories, is to open the application, click on the square button at the top right and in the bottom bar select “reel” by swiping to the left.
2. Click on the music icon. A huge list of songs will appear, but you can also search for your favourite by typing in the title or artist.
3. Once you have chosen one, select and select the fragment you want from the bar at the bottom of the screen by swiping to either side. When you are done, click on “done”.
4. Once here, you have two options: select videos from your gallery by clicking on the blue button with a cross, or record it on the spot by pressing the white button at the bottom of the screen. The selected song will play in the background. You can record different videos without any problem, as the music will play uninterruptedly.
   
5. Once finished, click on the white arrow icon to share it.
6. Finally, all you have to do is decide whether you want to share it in stories or not, add a title and click on “share”.

Now your reels will get many more views as they are accompanied by music that matches what you want to convey to your followers.

You can also watch how to do it in our video.

How to add music to videos in the feed?

The last option for adding videos to your Instagram is through the post feed. The steps here don’t differ much from the previous two, so it’s not complicated. We explain them to you:

1. Open the application and click on the square button at the top right.
2. You can also choose here whether you want to record a video or choose one from your gallery.
3. Then click on the blue arrow at the top right. A menu of options will appear from which you can select the song that best matches your video. You can also add voiceover by clicking on the microphone sticker or even sound effects by clicking on the speaker sticker.
   
4. Once you have chosen the song, repeat the same steps as above: select the song fragment you want to use by swiping to either side.
5. Click on the “ready” button so that you can play the video with the music in the background, and, if it has turned out the way you wanted, click on the “next” button, add title and/or text and, finally, click on “share” to publish it.

These are the steps to publish videos in your feed with background music. You have already seen that the steps are very similar to the previous ones.

As with the other two formats, you can watch our Yputube video to see how to do it.

Royalty-free music.

When publishing videos with music in your feed, you can also publish a video that you have edited in another app and to which you have previously added background music.

If you choose this option, please note that you cannot use music that is protected by copyright, as Instagram may mute or even remove it.

To avoid such problems, you can obtain high quality royalty-free music from specialised platforms.

The best known in this sector are Epidemic Sound, Envato Elements and Artlist. All of them offer a large catalogue of licensed music that will allow you to use it as background music in your Instagram videos without copyright issues.

Epidemic Sound

Epidemic Sound is probably the most prominent portal in the royalty-free music sector. Most youtubers and influencers turn to it to choose the music that best suits their Instagram content, as it offers a library of more than 100,000 royalty-free songs and sound effects.

This platform is also the only one that has a so-called “direct licence“, which is the licence that, simply explained, includes each and every one of the rights necessary to use the songs.

As a freelancer and content creator Epidemic Sound offers you its “Personal Plan“, with which you will be able to:

• Download unlimited music with all rights included.
• Use the music for videos with the ability to post to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch and TikTok.
• Select a full music track or download only the vocal or instrumental part.
• Use the music in sponsored or branded content.
• Access the Epidemic Sound mobile app.

This plan, if you want to pay monthly, is priced at $13 per month. However, Epidemic Sound offers the possibility to pay $108 per year in advance – that is, $9 per month – which is a saving of $4 per month compared to the month-to-month option.

Artlist

Artlist has a bank of more than 8,000 music tracks with a wide variety of music genres that are distinguished by the filters ‘Mood’, ‘Genre’ or ‘Instruments’.

It also offers different versions of the same song, for example, you can enjoy extended, shortened or instrumental versions, among others, to give different musical nuances to your Instagram videos.

Although there are several licences available, the best option for using its music in your Instagram videos is: “Social Creator“.

Once you purchase it, you will be able to use their music on any social network forever, without ever worrying about details such as commercial use of their music or whether the licences will expire when the subscription ends.

Thus, your licence fee can be paid monthly for $14.99 per month. However, if you choose the annual payment option, priced at $119.88, you only pay $9.99 per month.

Envato Elements

Another portal where you can go to use royalty-free music is Envato Elements.

Its audio tracks, all royalty-free, exceed 90,000 and are classified both by genre (pop, ambient, electronic…) and by mood (happy, sad, melancholic…).

One of its advantages is that, when you purchase a monthly subscription, you can make unlimited downloads for the whole month, without any limitations.

Envato Elements only has an individual plan priced at $14.50 per month, which gives you access to all tracks in the library with weekly new tracks and the ability to unsubscribe at any time.

Free Royalty-free music

Apart from the platforms mentioned above, there are other platforms that offer royalty-free music for free. These songs are licensed under the so-called Creative Commons licenses.

While this option may be tempting because it is free of charge, there are some problems and limitations:

• You will only be able to make personal use of the songs, not professional use, i.e. you will not be able to use them for Instagram ads.
• You will have to mention the artist of the music track, so you will have to write a sentence in the video mentioning the author.
• You will not have a legal document to ensure that the terms of the licence protecting the song will not change in the future – something that does not happen with the licences offered by paid platforms.

If these problems are not an impediment to your goal of adding music to your Instagram videos, we recommend you visit the following music portals:

• Youtube Audio Library
• Free Music Archive
• Incompetech
• NewGrounds

Before using any of the songs they offer, make sure that the licence allows for personal use and don’t forget to mention the author to avoid any problems.

Conclusion

As you have seen throughout the article, there are three different video formats on Instagram and each of them requires a different procedure to be able to add music to them; what they have in common is that you can choose the perfect song from the large music library offered by the application itself.

However, if you want to give a more personal, professional and corporate touch to your profile, you can also post pre-edited videos with background music added.

For this, it is best to use royalty-free music from platforms that ensure, for a small monthly fee, that you will not have any copyright problems.

However, if you prefer to do it for free, you can choose to do it in a safe way thanks to Creative Commons licences.

Either way, choose the method that best suits you and your content, offering your followers the music videos they are waiting for.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us. We will be happy to help you.

Pablo Olóndriz – Legis Music Founder-

Pablo Olóndriz founded Legis Music in 2016 and, since then, has been working non-stop on the online Royalty-Free industry, managing to build a great source of information for people who need amazing background music for their projects and videos.

Can you use copyrighted music on Instagram stories?

Can you post Instagram stories with music?

What happens if you use a copyrighted song on Instagram?

Can I use 30 seconds of copyrighted music on Instagram?