Using Music in Brand Content: The Licences You Need

You have the edit locked, the launch date set, and a track that fits the cut perfectly. Before it ships, one question decides whether the campaign runs or gets pulled: do you have permission to put that music against those pictures?

Music is the one asset in a video that almost never comes with a single owner. Getting it right is not complicated, but it does have a shape, and the shape catches people out.

Every song is two separate things

A commercial recording contains two copyrights, owned by different people, licensed separately.

The composition. The song itself: the melody, the chords, the lyrics. This is owned by the songwriters and, usually, their music publishers. There can easily be four or five writers on a modern pop song, each with a different publisher, and you generally need all of them.

The sound recording. The specific recorded performance you actually heard. This is normally owned by the record label, or by the artist if they released it independently.

Clearing one does not give you the other. If a publisher grants you the song but the label says no to the recording, you have nothing usable. This is the single most common reason a music clearance falls apart late.

What a sync license covers, and what a master use license covers

A synchronization license, or sync license, is permission from the composition owners to synchronize the song with moving images. That is what makes it a sync: music plus picture, in timed relation.

A master use license is permission from the owner of the sound recording to use that specific recording in the same way.

For a typical brand video using a released track, you need both. If you commission a cover version or re-record the song yourself, you no longer need a master use license from the original label, because you own the new recording. You still need the sync license from the publishers, because the composition has not changed.

Two points that regularly cost people money:

• There is no statutory rate for sync. In the US, sync is negotiated under the copyright owner's exclusive rights. Nobody is obliged to say yes, and nobody has to quote you a set price. Mechanical royalties, the ones paid for reproducing and streaming a song, are a different thing entirely; those are statutory in the US and set by the Copyright Royalty Board. A mechanical license does not cover sync, and neither does a distribution deal.
• Royalty free is a payment model, not a rights waiver. It means you pay once instead of per use. It does not mean the track has no owner, and it does not automatically stretch to paid advertising, broadcast, or theatrical use. What you get is whatever that specific license says you get.

Why a library track is usually the right answer

For most brand content, chasing a famous song is the wrong fight. A recognizable recording by a well known artist is priced by negotiation between you, the label and every publisher on the split, and clearance for a single track can take weeks. Fame, media, term, territory and exclusivity all push the number up, and any one rights holder can simply decline.

Production music libraries and one stop catalogs exist to solve exactly this. In a one stop deal, a single company controls both the composition and the recording, so one license covers both rights. The music is written to work under picture, the paperwork arrives in hours rather than weeks, and the price is known before you commit to the edit.

When you buy from a library, read for four things:

1. Scope of media. Does it cover paid advertising, broadcast, connected TV and cinema, or only organic social and web? Many cheaper tiers stop at web and social.
2. Term and territory. Is it worldwide and perpetual for this production, or a one year, one country license you will have to renew mid-campaign?
3. Number of productions. Some licenses cover one video. Others cover a whole channel.
4. Indemnity. A serious library will warrant that it controls the rights and indemnify you if that turns out to be wrong. That warranty is a large part of what you are paying for.

If you are commissioning original music instead, the same clarity applies to your composer agreement. Say in writing who owns the composition and the recording when it is delivered, or you are back to needing permission from your own supplier every time you cut a new version.

What actually happens if you skip clearance

It is rarely a lawsuit first. Platforms match uploaded audio against reference files supplied by rights holders, so the usual sequence looks like this:

• The video is matched and the rights holder's chosen action applies. That can mean the audio is muted, the video is blocked in some or all territories, or the advertising revenue is redirected to the rights holder.
• For a brand, an ad with the audio muted or the video blocked burns media spend on a placement that no longer works, and the fix is a re-edit and a re-upload with the engagement history lost.
• Repeated matches against the same account can put the channel itself at risk.
• Separately from any of that, the rights holders can pursue a claim directly, and a broadcaster or a platform running your ad will normally require you to indemnify them for exactly this situation.

None of this is dramatic. It is just expensive and slow at the worst possible moment, and it is entirely avoidable.

Settle these before you approach anyone

Rights holders quote from a usage description. Vague briefs get slow answers or no answer. Write down:

• Media: organic social, paid social, the brand's website, email, out of home, broadcast, cinema, in game.
• Territory: every country the content will run in, including where paid media may be geo targeted later.
• Term: the start date and how long the content stays up.
• Length and cutdowns: how much of the track, and how many versions and edits.
• Prominence: is the music featured, or background under a voiceover?
• Exclusivity: almost always unnecessary, and always expensive.

Ask for most favored nation treatment across the composition and recording sides so the two quotes match rather than one side holding out. Get the exact recording identified in the paperwork, and keep the license, the invoice and the correspondence with the delivered files. When an automated match flags a use you cleared, that folder is what resolves it.

If you are the one who owns the music

If you write or record music and you want it used in other people's videos, the work is the same in reverse. Keep clean split sheets showing every writer and their percentage. Register your compositions with your performing rights organization so that broadcast and streaming performance royalties can find you. Keep the paperwork proving you control the recording, because a licensee's lawyer will ask for it.

If the US is a market for you, register the works with the US Copyright Office. Registration is what lets you bring an infringement suit over a US work, and registering early is what keeps statutory damages and attorney fees on the table. That is worth doing before you start licensing at volume, not after a problem appears.

What GTC does here

We are not a music clearance house. We do not negotiate with labels or publishers, and we do not sell sync or master use licenses.

What we do is the copyright work around your content. Copyright registration for the material you own, and licensing and assignment agreements so that the rights in commissioned work, including original music written for your brand, actually end up where you think they do. If your project needs a track cleared, a music clearance specialist or a one stop library is the right call, and we are happy to say so.

Sources

• U.S. Copyright Office, frequently asked questions
• U.S. Copyright Office, Copyright Basics (Circular 1)
• Copyright Royalty Board