Music and licensing
Every licence named for the piece it belongs to and filed in your folder, under a music law that is different at every brand.
The short version
Is this for you? For claims that arrive months after upload and a licence nobody can find. Here every licence is named for the piece it covers, with the video title alongside, and filed in your own folder. Not if you already license cleanly and keep the paperwork; this earns its keep where music is frequent and the filing has been an afterthought.
What leaves your plate. The licence uploaded to your folder before anyone asks for it, the right clearance for the actual use rather than a nearby one, and a music law read per brand, one of which is a flat ban.
What starts working. Music that sounds like your brand rather than like a library, and a licence folder you own, named so a copyright claim is answered the day it arrives instead of the week it ruins.
The smallest way in. A free audit: three fields, and a written reading back, usually within about three working days. It commits you to nothing.
What to read next. The five levels to see where this fits, or the casework to see it done.
Where the licence lives once the video ships
The licence is uploaded into your folder
Each track's licence is saved under the name of the piece it covers and placed in the partner's own storage, beside the video it belongs to. If a claim ever lands, the document is already where the person answering it will look, which is the difference between an afternoon and a fortnight. Recorded beside it is what the licence actually permits, the use, the platforms, the territory and the term, because a filed document proves a specific permission rather than ownership of the track.
Filing happens before anybody asks
Noticing that a batch has gone live is enough to start it: the licences go up and the brand is told they are there. Nobody has to chase. This is the least glamorous paragraph on the website and one of the more expensive habits to acquire, because it only ever pays out in problems that do not happen.
Three partners, three music laws, and one of them is a ban
Instrumental modern jazz on one channel. No vocals and no hard transitions on another, with the intro and outro tracks fixed permanently so the library keeps a signature. On the third, no stock music at all: the opening is the brand's own recording and the audio comes from the studio that made it. A house playlist would have been wrong three times over.
The camera's own audio is never used
Where a separate recording studio sits in the chain, the camera scratch track is barred outright and the delivered audio file is the only source. Small rule, large failure behind it: a scene cut against a camera microphone sounds like a different room, and a viewer who cannot say why will simply feel the video get cheaper for eight seconds.
How music gets chosen and cleared
Selection starts from a written brief
Genre, vocal policy, transition behaviour and tempo are all set per partner before anybody opens a library. New genres are worth trying inside those limits. Sharp or hard transitions are out at two partners, because a jolt in the music reads as a mistake in the edit even when the cut underneath it was clean.
Naming is what makes it findable later
Each licence carries the name of the piece it belongs to, in a format the partner's own team already sorts by. A folder of perfectly valid licences with meaningless file names is functionally an unlicensed folder at the exact moment somebody needs one in a hurry.
Where the music starts and stops is an editorial decision
On one channel the outro track begins the moment the food starts being plated, every time, so the ending is recognised before it is announced. Fixed intro and outro music does the same job across a whole library: a viewer knows the shape of one of these videos before they know its title.
A licence that lives only in the studio's folder is a licence you do not have.
So it goes into your folder, named for the piece it covers, on the day the video ships.
What changes for you
Music that sounds like the brand rather than like a library, and a licence folder the partner owns, named so that a copyright claim is answered the same day it arrives.
Related: Audio mixing · Shorts and Reels · Delivery and export · Audio post-production
Send the channel and we will read the edits themselves: pacing, cuts, consistency across recent videos. The audit names what post-production would change first, in writing, before anything is committed.
Request your free audit.
Three fields, and a written reading back: a fit snapshot, two or three prioritised opportunities, and a recommended next step.
A person reads the channel and writes the audit by hand: a considered read typically takes three working days. That is the usual shape, not a promised turnaround. We use these details only to reply to you: no lists, no lurking.
What you will get
A fit snapshot: where your channel stands, and whether we are a match.
Two to three opportunities: specific, prioritised, yours to keep.
A recommended next step, even if that step is not us.
The audit is free and commits you to nothing: nobody follows up with a call you did not ask for.
The casework shows all of this done.
The case studies are the same work with the numbers, the sources and the dates attached.
See the casework →