Sync Licensing
A sync license grants the right to pair music with visual content. Required for ads, branded videos, and any commercial content that combines music with moving images, including social media campaigns.
What is a Sync License?
A sync license (short for synchronisation license) grants the legal right to pair a piece of music with visual content — including advertisements, branded videos, films, TV programmes, and social media posts. The term "sync" refers to synchronising audio with moving images.
A full sync clearance requires two separate licences: a sync license covering the musical composition (melody and lyrics, controlled by the publisher), and a master license covering the specific sound recording (controlled by the record label or recording owner). Both must be obtained to legally use a commercial recording in video content. Many brands unknowingly obtain only one, or neither.
Do You Need a Sync License for Social Media?
This is one of the most misunderstood areas of music rights for brands. Most major platforms — TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube — have blanket licensing deals with major labels and publishers for user-generated content. But these deals typically cover personal accounts only, not business accounts creating branded content. Paid advertising using commercially released music always requires full sync and master clearance, regardless of platform.
If a brand directs an influencer to use specific music in commissioned content, the brand may bear liability even if the influencer posts from a personal account. The distinction between user-generated and branded content is an increasingly litigated grey area.
The Sync Licensing Gap for Brands
The gap between what brands think is licensed and what is actually licensed is significant. Trakr's analysis of 200,000 TikTok brand posts found over 16,000 posts with no clear licensing evidence, representing more than 1.14 billion views. Most were posted by brands who assumed platform licensing covered their commercial use.
Trakr identifies which of your brand's posts carry sync licensing exposure, before it becomes a problem.
Related terms: Audio Fingerprinting · Content ID · Neighbouring Rights · ISRC · ISWC
