Instagram Music is now available in Jamaica.
Since it was first launched in 2018, Instagram’s music feature was not available to people in Jamaica due to music licensing restrictions. On content from around the world, where the feature was switched on, users from the island were, instead, shown muted stories or videos.
Now, the feature has been released to in Jamaica on Wednesday (December 8). This means that persons wishing to post images and videos using licensed music can select the “music” option from “stickers” in their Instagram stories.
The Meta-owned Instagram licenses music from record labels or music rights holders for use in the regions that are agreed upon by the licenser.
The platform is one of the most popularly used in Jamaica with 590,000 monthly Instagram users in 2019, according to Statista.
In January, Forbes reported that Facebook, now Meta which owns Instagram, began enabling artists to charge for live streams. This was in response to Twitch and Bandcamp’s fan tipping feature. Bandcamp has facilitated over $653 million in direct fan payments to artists, according to Forbes.
Other streaming services yet to enter Jamaica include Pandora, where Bob Marley, Sean Paul, and Shaggy are among the most played reggae artists on the platform.
Persons on Twitter are already reacting to Instagram music in Jamaica with tweets and memes
