Too many full songs in an Instagram video? Meta says it may be limited

Yes: Instagram can limit a video that leans on recorded music. Meta's guidelines say "the greater the number of full-length recorded tracks in a video, the more likely it may be limited" and recommend shorter clips of music instead. Meta gives no number, and says the specifics of its licensing agreements are confidential, so there is no safe count of seconds to aim for. What you can control is how much of each song you use and how much of the video is music at all.

What exactly do Meta's guidelines say?

The page I read is Meta's "Updates and Guidelines for Including Music in Video". It makes four points, and I list them as written or closely paraphrased so the table does not add anything Meta did not say.

What can I do about a long song?

Use less of it. A Reel is built from clips and a bed, so the music rarely needs to run the whole length of a track. Pick the section you need and fade out under the last shot. In a Sume Timeline 1.0 render you declare the output length with audio.duration_seconds, and the optional soundtrack takes a fade_out_seconds of up to 10 and duck_db between 0 and 20 so speech stays on top of the bed.

Can I make a short music bed instead?

Sume's Music Router generates music from a prompt. It rejects duration and duration_seconds, so you steer the length in the prompt: the docs use "A 30-second track" and section markers like [0:00-0:30] Intro: .... That is a request, not a measured setting, so confirm the length of what you got. This post is about length and balance only; it does not make any claim about rights, and Meta's page is the one to read for how Instagram treats recorded music.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/music-router/generate \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: reel-bed-001" \
  -d '{
    "model": "sume/music-auto",
    "prompt": "Warm lo-fi hip hop, 84 BPM, C minor. Dusty Rhodes chords, brushed drums. A 30-second track. Instrumental, no vocals."
  }'

How do I check there is still a visual?

Meta says there should always be a visual component. For a Reel built from a still and a track, the still is the visual, so treat it as a real part of the design and not a placeholder. Run video inspect on the render to read the probe, and pull a few frames to confirm the picture changes as often as you intended. Check probe.has_audio as well, so you know the bed made it into the file.

What is a sensible checklist?

Before you post, run through the short list below. None of it comes with a Meta threshold, so it is a way of keeping to the spirit of the guidance.

• Use a clip of a song, not the whole song.
• Keep speech or on-screen action as the main content, with music as the bed.
• Keep a visual on screen for the whole video.
• Duck the music under any voice, and fade it out at the end.
• Read Meta's page again when you plan a campaign, since the text may change.