When Meta or TikTok lets you add a song to your profile or story, they pay for it. They use official APIs connected to massive licensing deals with record labels. The artist gets paid, the platform stays legal, and the user doesn't have to think twice.
Telegram took a completely different route when it rolled out its "Music on Profile" feature. Instead of plugging into Spotify, Apple Music, or Meta's licensed library, Telegram designed the system to let users pin raw audio files directly from their chats to their profiles.
On paper, Telegram claims it is just a neutral platform providing a media player. In reality, this design forces users to source their own MP3 files. Since almost nobody buys digital downloads legally anymore, the feature drives people straight to YouTube downloaders, stream-rippers, and piracy bots just to get a track to show up on their page.
Telegram isn't technically violating copyright laws itself because it hides behind "safe harbor" legal protections—it isn't liable until a label issues a specific takedown. But by building a feature that functions best when users upload unlicensed audio, it is actively normalizing digital theft.
This isn't just an issue for secular courts. Under modern Sharia law, this setup creates a massive ethical problem.
Islamic jurisprudence widely recognizes intellectual property rights under the concept of Haqq al-Ta'lif (copyright). A creator's music, writing, or software is viewed as legitimate property (Mal). Sourcing an MP3 through a third-party ripper to avoid paying for it—or to bypass the artist's monetized platform—is a direct violation of Huquq al-Ibad (the rights of people). It is, quite simply, taking something that doesn’t belong to you without permission. Modern scholars view digital piracy as a form of theft, making the practice haram (forbidden).
By building an ecosystem that relies on these stolen files, Telegram has created a feature that fundamentally encourages its users to cross legal and religious lines for something as trivial as social media aesthetics. It is a lazy engineering shortcut that shifts the legal and ethical liability entirely onto the user.