Ever heard of ‘Royalty-Free’ music? The reason we ask is because brands cannot willy-nilly use commercial music tracks within their Social Media posts without specific permission from either the artist or their overarching management label. Licensed music is always protected by intellectual property (IP) rights and must 1st be allowed for fair-share use, despite their availability as usable options within the post creation tools.
Do You Copy?
The broad decision comes amid a rising amount of copyright infringements being filed against brands for using unlicensed music in their promotions, as they lean into trends, particularly the short-form one. As repeatedly exemplified by TikTok, clips are heavily reliant on sound and accompanying music to really make an impact on viewers. However, careless use of unlicensed tracks can easily get you in a pinch.
“Energy drink maker Bang achieved enormous marketing success through its aggressive and flashy social media strategy that used popular influencers to advertise its drinks on TikTok and Instagram Reels. But the company didn’t obtain a license to use the music in more than 100 of its videos, and it was hit with copyright lawsuits from all three of the major US record labels. A federal judge this year ruled in favor of the labels in two of those cases.”
This is but one of many examples – Bloomberg also notes that Warner Music recently sued UK-based makeup company Iconic London for copyright infringement in their TikTok and Instagram posts. The increasing enforcement of copyright for Social Media marks a new rising focus for major labels. In recent years, big recording companies have formed entire teams to scour the fields of the internet for unlicensed usage of their client’s works.
These consequential changes have been most pronounced on YouTube, where labels have been able to claim revenue on any video that used their licensed music. YouTube has since changed its process and now allows creators to remove violative segments of their uploads. The increased emphasis on music copyright infringement has made this a higher priority for rights-holding organizations. Such organizations now have their sights locked on TikTok.
Having become a key avenue for music promotion, TikTok was able to essentially nitro boost its growth by riding on the natural reach and resonance of popular tracks, playing a big part in most viral trends and even sparking entire careers. This has led to TikTok further refining its ability to add tracks. For marketers, knowing the rules around such and avoiding low-blowing the law is imperative. As far as TikTok says:
“If a business account chooses to use sounds beyond what is available in the Commercial Music Library for their promotional content, they need to obtain the appropriate commercial license and ingest the sound onto TikTok for their use.”
Also, there’s this. So, you can pretty much use music in your promotions, so long as it comes from TikTok’s Commercial Music Library. Simply put, you can’t use really famous songs as regular users can in your brand promotions, unless you have explicit permission to do so.
The Wrap
At the end of the day, it falls to you as the brand owner/manager to understand the licensing and permission requirements for using commercial tracks. Basically, if you’re using the latest song from, say, Taylor Swift, her team would at least need time to approve of such use for they might not want their music to be associated with your brand, which, as a business owner, you should understand why. Always be sure to read the regulations regarding such.
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