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Creator Economy

Mastering music rights on social media: a copyright crash course for brands

Jaclyn Petrovich

Music makes social media pop, right? Creators use music to produce engaging content, which contributes to a social media platform’s success, and gives advertisers highly-valuable inventory to market against. But with platforms, creators, and brands making money from engaging digital content, it only makes sense that music owners (rightsholders) want their share of the profits too, and rightly so. That’s where social media music licensing comes in. 

At Pex, we found that 84% of videos on YouTube, 58% of videos on Instagram, and 49% of all videos on Facebook contain at least 10 seconds of music. That’s a lot of content that rightsholders can get paid for through music licenses, but it hasn’t always been easy for them. We won’t bore you with a history lesson on why that is, but we will tell you how it affects your marketing strategies. 

Did you know that using music on social media without proper licensing can be risky for marketers and creators? When brands and creators  – including employees and influencers – misuse music on social media, they may face takedowns, campaign removals, and even lawsuits once rightsholders discover their music hasn’t been licensed. This can be frustrating for creators and costly for brands, potentially ruining their campaigns and hurting their reputation. 

Fortunately, we put together this handy guide, Mastering music rights on social media, to help you learn about music copyrights and licensing. So put on your favorite playlist and dive into our crash course on music copyrights so you can go viral without disrupting your campaigns.  

Download the free guide to learn:

  • Music copyright basics
  • Types of music licenses
  • The complexity of music use on social media
  • How to use music on social media as a brand 
  • Social media campaign checklist 

Check your content with Pex

Pex can help protect your brand by preventing infringement and checking past content. Our technology identifies music in your social content in real time, before anything goes live, and we can audit your published posts, so you can take action before a music rightsholder does. Contact our team to learn more.

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