There are a few key reasons why music is not available as an option for Facebook Stories:
Licensing Restrictions
One of the main reasons is that Facebook would have to obtain licenses from record labels, music publishers, and other rights holders to allow people to use full songs in their Stories. This can be very expensive and complicated from a licensing perspective, especially compared to short clips. Platforms like TikTok have worked out special licensing deals to allow use of music, but Facebook has not pursued similar licenses.
Focus on Simplicity
Facebook product designers have intentionally kept Stories simple, with a focus on photos and videos. Adding a music option would increase complexity in the user interface and functionality. Facebook has prioritized ease of use, quick sharing, and visual content for Stories.
Avoid Competition with Music Apps
Facebook also owns Instagram, which has emerged as a top social app for sharing music clips and moments. Allowing full music in Facebook Stories could potentially take engagement away from music-focused experiences like Instagram and reduce time spent in those standalone apps. Facebook wants to drive traffic to its other properties.
Technical/Copyright Challenges
Integrating full music catalogues in Stories entails many technical challenges as well, from proper attribution to preventing copyright infringement. Facebook may have decided it’s not worth the engineering lift required to build out and maintain these systems.
Monetization Limitations
Unlike TikTok, Facebook does not have obvious ways to monetize and profit from music usage in Stories. TikTok can drive traffic to artists and share ad revenue with labels and publishers. Facebook on the other hand does not have systems in place to compensate rights holders or extract value from music in Stories.
In summary, licensing hurdles, design considerations, competitive dynamics, technical challenges, and lack of monetization opportunities help explain why Facebook has not activated full music capabilities for Stories. The focus has been on simplicity and visual content.
Facebook does allow users to add stickers with short music clips to their Stories, but full-length songs are not an option. Rights issues, engineering complexity, and product strategy appear to have held Facebook back from providing a robust music integration in Stories.
Going forward, if Facebook wants to capture more engagement and time-spent from younger users who are drawn to music-centric apps like TikTok, they may need to revisit this decision and find ways to enable music that overcome the current limitations. But for now, simplicity reigns supreme when it comes to Facebook Stories.
Facebook Stories launched in early 2017 as the company’s answer to the popularity of Snapchat Stories. Both formats allow users to post photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours. But while Snapchat Stories have a wide array of creative tools and options, Facebook initially kept Stories simple and pared back.
No music was available at launch for adding songs or audio to accompany Facebook Stories. And in the six years since, not much has changed on the music front for Stories.
This contrasts with other leading social apps filled with music moments — like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok — where songs and audio are central to the experience.
So why has Facebook resisted adding music capabilities to Stories over the years? A few key reasons stand out.
Music Licensing Headaches
Enabling people to use full-length copyrighted songs in their Stories would require Facebook to obtain licenses from major record labels, music publishers, performance rights organizations, and other rights holders.
These licensing deals can be extremely costly and time-consuming for a social platform to put in place, especially when it comes to newer uses like short-form stories that disappear.
Facebook would likely have to create an entirely new licensing structure for Stories if they opened up music there. The logistics would be challenging.
In contrast, other platforms like TikTok planned for music integration from the start and worked for years to broker deals with the record industry to make it feasible.
Facebook has preferred to avoid the licensing headache altogether by sticking to simpler sharing without music for Stories.
High Costs
Even if Facebook was willing to do the legwork to make music licensing agreements, the costs would be prohibitively expensive. Reportedly, TikTok pays out hundreds of millions of dollars per year to music rights holders through their licensing deals.
Facebook would need to fork over similar massive amounts to legally use songs in Stories, eating into profit margins significantly.
Without a clear way to generate revenue from music in Stories, it may not be worth it financially for Facebook to allow full-song usage.
Complex Requirements
Facebook would also need to implement complex systems to track song usage accurately, identify copyrighted material, prevent unauthorized usage, and compensate rights holders.
TikTok had to build out robust systems to detect copyright infringement and attribute music usage to the correct rights holders when doling out royalty payments.
Facebook may have decided this time-consuming and expensive technical lift isn’t worth it, when simpler sharing without music works fine for Stories.
Focus on Visual Sharing
When Facebook Stories launched, the focus was squarely on fast visual sharing – photos and short videos. Keeping Stories simple with only basic creative tools allowed Facebook to differentiate from Snapchat Stories and quickly drive adoption.
Adding music integration would complicate the user experience and product design significantly. So Facebook streamlined Stories initially to be about quick visual posts, not music and audio.
Cluttered Design
Integrating the ability to search for, select, and include songs in Stories would require adding a music picker interface and associated controls.
This added UI complexity could make Stories feel cluttered for people who just want to share photos or videos without hunting for the perfect song.
Shift in Focus
Music also shifts the emphasis away from visual content. Facebook aimed to keep the focus on photos and videos you take in the moment rather than production value.
So leaving out music allowed them to differentiate from more produced short-form video platforms.
Avoid Cannibalization
Facebook also likely didn’t want full music integration in Stories to undercut engagement on their other music-focused apps, like Instagram and its TikTok competitor Reels.
Drawing users away from those standalone apps could be counterproductive for Facebook’s overall ecosystem.
Protect Instagram
In particular, Facebook has strategic reasons not to put music in Facebook Stories when Instagram has become a top destination for music discovery and expression.
Adding Facebook Stories music could potentially take away “music moments” from Instagram Reels and feed posts where artists share new songs.
Promote Reels
Facebook also wants to drive traffic to Reels, their TikTok clone feature within Instagram. Making Facebook Stories more music-focused could hinder their attempts to gain ground against TikTok with Reels.
Technical Difficulties
Enabling millions of people to add full songs to their ephemeral Facebook Stories at scale poses many technical challenges as well.
Reliably recognizing music, correctly identifying rights holders, monitoring copyright infringement, and compiling usage metrics require heavy engineering lift.
Attribution Struggles
In particular, the technical difficulties in accurately tracking what music is used and attributing it to the proper rights holders for royalty payouts are immense.
Facebook may have decided it wasn’t worth reinventing the wheel after TikTok already engineered those systems.
Infrastructure Constraints
There are also infrastructure considerations with hosting millions of videos featuring full-length music alongside all the other content on Facebook.
The costs for storage, bandwidth, and computing could become prohibitive.
Minimal Monetization
Unlike TikTok and other platforms focused on short-form video, Facebook also doesn’t have clearly compelling ways to monetize music usage in Stories.
So the return on investment in music licensing and technical integration is lower.
Limited Ads
Facebook only allows a single mid-roll ad in the middle of Stories. And their automated ad content targeting is focused on interests and demographics more than music or audio cues.
So they lack TikTok’s capabilities for highly relevant and effective music-centric ad targeting in Stories.
No Revenue Sharing
TikTok provides an alternative monetization avenue by allowing artists to promote their songs directly and sharing ad revenue with music rights holders.
Without similar mechanisms, Facebook has less incentive to shoulder the burden of music licensing costs.
The Future of Music in Stories
Given all these factors, it’s understandable why Facebook has deprioritized music integration in Stories to date.
But as they look to stay competitive in the future, Facebook will likely need to reevaluate this stance at some point.
Here are some possibilities going forward:
New Licensing Deals
If Facebook gets to the scale of TikTok, they may be able to negotiate cost-effective deals with record labels and publishers to add music to Stories.
Monetization Innovation
Alternatively, Facebook could develop new ad formats or revenue sharing opportunities specifically tied to music usage in Stories.
User Demand
As younger users gravitate to more musical platforms like TikTok, user demand may eventually force Facebook to figure out music for Stories.
Status Quo
Or perhaps simplicity will stay core to Stories. Instagram Reels may remain Facebook’s designated home for music short-form video.
Overall the licensing hurdles, design considerations, technical challenges, and monetization issues paint a clear picture for why music has not been a priority for Facebook Stories.
But as short-form video platforms continue evolving, Facebook may eventually rethink music as a key driver of engagement and self-expression in Stories.
Conclusion
In summary, the lack of music integration in Facebook Stories stems primarily from:
- High licensing costs and complex deals needed with record labels and publishers
- Desire to keep the Stories user experience simple and focused on visual sharing
- Not wanting to undermine engagement on their other music products like Instagram and Reels
- Significant technical difficulties in integrating music at scale
- Minimal monetization opportunities compared to other short-form video platforms
Together these factors have led Facebook to resist adding full music capabilities to Stories, despite music becoming central to competing apps.
Looking ahead, Facebook may eventually need to revisit this decision as user expectations evolve. But for now, they have steered clear of the headaches associated with licensing and integrating music into Stories.
The focus remains on simplicity, ease of use, and quick visual sharing.