In this guide
- What is the Meta Sound Collection?
- Why does Meta keep some business accounts out of Instagram's main music library?
- If a business can still choose your track in the app, is it licensed?
- Have rights owners gone to court over music in Instagram posts?
- What can you do about it inside Meta's own tools?
- How do you find out whether businesses are selling with your music on Instagram?
On Instagram and Facebook, Meta's main music library is meant for personal use. For commercial use, Meta offers the Meta Sound Collection, a separate library of royalty-free tracks licensed for use on its own products. A business that sells with your track outside the Sound Collection needs your licence. The labels have taken brands to court over exactly this. Where the work was registered first, US law allows up to $150,000 for each work infringed wilfully, by a business that knew it needed a licence or did not care whether it did.
What is the Meta Sound Collection?
The Meta Sound Collection is Meta's library of royalty-free music and sound effects for content on its own products. Its terms give a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use the audio "for commercial or non-commercial purposes" in content made and shared on Meta's products "only", and bar any use of it separately from them. In a post of 15 July 2025, Meta put the collection at over 14,000 music tracks and over 1,500 sound effects. Instagram's help page says Sound Collection content "can be used for commercial purposes like ads".
Why does Meta keep some business accounts out of Instagram's main music library?
Meta keeps them out so that the music in it is not used commercially. The same help page says the music in Instagram's licensed library "is intended for personal, non-commercial use", and that "to make sure that the music in our licensed library is not used for commercial purposes, certain business accounts and certain types of posts do not have access to the library." Accounts without access are pointed to the Sound Collection. In Ads Manager, the music "currently consists of royalty-free audio from the Meta Sound Collection".
If a business can still choose your track in the app, is it licensed?
Not by being able to choose it. The app decides what an account can pick. Meta's terms decide what it may do with the music. Instagram's Terms of Use make any use of music on Instagram subject to Meta's Music Guidelines. The Guidelines prohibit use of music "for commercial or non-personal purposes" unless the user has obtained appropriate licences, and leave the person who posts "solely responsible" for any music in the post.
A business that sells with your track needs the permission of the music's owners, wherever it found the track.
Have rights owners gone to court over music in Instagram posts?
Yes, and in one case the label turned Meta's own rules against the brand. On 17 May 2024, Sony Music Entertainment and its affiliated labels sued Marriott International in the US District Court for the District of Delaware. Sony alleged at least 931 infringements in the US: 913 in videos on the social media pages of Marriott's own, managed and franchised hotels, and 18 in videos by paid influencers.
The complaint quoted Meta's Music Guidelines, said they are part of Instagram's Terms of Use, and said that for commercial uses Instagram provides a separate Sound Collection. None of the Sony recordings in the Marriott videos, it said, were in that collection. Sony cited the platforms' terms, which it said make clear that music needs a licence, as evidence that the infringement was wilful. The case ended in October 2024, under five months after filing, and no terms were disclosed.
In April 2025, Warner Music Group sued Crumbl in federal court in Utah, alleging that it used at least 159 Warner recordings and compositions in promotional videos on TikTok and Instagram. The case settled in 2026, and its terms have not been made public.
Both labels sought the most the law allows for each work. What Warner sought from Crumbl could have come to up to $23.85 million had the court granted the maximum for every work.
What can you do about it inside Meta's own tools?
You can act on the post. Meta's Rights Manager finds videos on Facebook and Instagram, Live videos included, that match a rights holder's copyrighted content. On a match, the rights holder can block the video, monitor it, report it as an IP violation or claim available ad earnings. Its terms are for those who own or control exclusive rights in the content in the territory concerned, or are exclusively authorised to enforce them. Separately, Meta uses Audible Magic to flag uploaded videos on an audio match. And on a rights owner's report, Meta may remove the content without contacting the person who posted it.
Each of these acts on the post, and a takedown pays nobody. Getting paid for a use the business has already made is a claim against the business, made outside the platform.
How do you find out whether businesses are selling with your music on Instagram?
We search for them. Our own audio fingerprinting technology finds your tracks on Instagram and TikTok, past and present, including sped-up, slowed-down and renamed copies. We pick out posts by businesses and brands, not individuals, and leave out any post that uses a Sound Collection track. Every post is captured as evidence, hashed and dated, before anyone contacts the business. Specialist music lawyers then pursue what the business owes.
On one catalogue, two decades of hits by a major artist, we found 538 businesses and organisations using the music on social media, seemingly without a licence, and captured 580 of their posts as evidence.
You pay nothing for the service. We take a share of what a business pays.
