How to License Your Own Music for YouTube and Brand Content
To license your own music to a YouTube creator or brand, you grant two rights you control: a sync license for the composition and a master use license for the recording. Write a one-page agreement covering use, territory, term, exclusivity, and fee. In Canada, SOCAN can administer sync at 10% commission as an opt-in service. In the US, ASCAP and BMI never touch sync at all.
If you own your music outright, you don't need anyone's permission to license it. A creator or a brand wants to put your track behind their video, and you're the one who says yes and sets the price. This page is about that side of the desk: you as the rights holder, drafting the deal, charging for it, and making sure your performing rights organization still pays you afterward.
This is one spoke in our larger guide to music licensing for content creators. The other pages cover it from the creator's seat (clearing music for YouTube, Twitch, brand deals). Here we stay on the artist's side: what a simple license says, what to charge, and the one real difference between how Canada's SOCAN and America's ASCAP and BMI handle the deal once you've signed it.
Quick honesty up front: there's no statutory fee for this in either country. No rate card, no compulsory license for pairing music with video. Every number on this page is a negotiated range, not a law. You set the price, and your leverage is that you own both copyrights and can clear the whole thing in one signature.
separate licenses you grant: sync (composition) and master use (recording)
typical micro-sync fee for a TikTok or Reels clip
SOCAN commission if it administers your sync license
PRO notifications required for a US sync deal
Key takeaways
- Two licenses, both yours to grant: a sync license for the composition and a master use license for the recording. If you wrote and recorded it, you sign both.
- There's no compulsory license and no statutory fee for audiovisual sync in the US. Everything is negotiated.
- A workable direct license fits on one page: works, use, territory, term, exclusivity, fee, attribution, platform, sublicensing.
- Typical creator fees run from $5 to $500 for a TikTok or Reels clip, up to $200 to $2,000 for a 100K to 1M subscriber YouTube channel, and into five figures for brand-sponsored content.
- ASCAP and BMI do not issue sync licenses and don't need to be notified of your deal. SOCAN can administer the sync for you, but only as an opt-in service that requires your approval per deal.
- Either way, once the video runs, the composition's performance royalties still flow to your PRO with no per-deal notification required.
What two licenses are you actually granting?
Every time music goes behind video, two separate permissions have to exist. The sync license covers the underlying composition: the melody, the chords, the lyrics. The master use license covers the specific recording, the actual audio file. These are two different copyrights and, in most of the industry, two different owners who each have to say yes.
The reason this matters for you is that if you wrote the song and recorded it yourself, you own both. You're what people call a one-stop. A creator or brand can clear everything they need from a single person, in one signature, which is a real advantage over a signed artist whose label and publisher both have to sign off separately. You're faster to deal with, and that's worth money.
Worth being clear: this is true whether the placement is a YouTube video, a Twitch stream, a brand ad, or a sponsored Instagram post. The platform doesn't change which two rights are in play. What changes is the price and the terms, and that's the rest of this page.
Sync has no compulsory license
Unlike a cover song's mechanical royalty, there is no statutory fee and no compulsory license for pairing music with video in the US. Nobody can force you to license, and there's no government rate you have to accept. Every sync deal is negotiated from scratch.
What goes into a simple direct license
You don't need a lawyer's 12-page contract for a creator clearing one track. You need a clear one-pager that pins down what you're granting so there's no argument later. These are the fields it has to cover.
The works licensed: the title, plus the ISRC for the recording and the ISWC for the composition so there's no ambiguity about which version. The permitted use: spell it out, like a non-commercial YouTube video, or a brand social campaign on Instagram and TikTok. The territory: worldwide, North America, Canada only. The term: specific dates, a duration like 12 months, or perpetuity. The more you give away on any of these, the more you charge.
Then the commercial terms. Exclusivity: exclusive or non-exclusive, and exclusivity always costs more because you're agreeing not to license the same track to anyone else for that term. The fee and payment terms. Attribution: whether they have to credit you. Platform restrictions: YouTube only versus all platforms. And sublicensing: can the creator pass the rights along to the brand they're working for? That last one catches people out, so decide it on purpose.
Works: "Paper Streets" (master ISRC CA-XXX-26-00001; composition ISWC T-000.000.001-0) Licensee: a mid-size travel vlogger Permitted use: background music in one monetized YouTube video Territory: worldwide Term: perpetuity, for that one video only Exclusivity: non-exclusive Platform: YouTube only Attribution: artist credited in the video description Sublicensing: none Fee: $750, one-time, paid before publish
- “non-exclusive”
- You keep the right to license the same track to other creators at the same time. This is the normal default and it keeps the fee reasonable. Exclusivity would push it up, often two to five times.
- “YouTube only”
- If they later want the same edit on TikTok or in an ad, that's a new use and a new fee. Naming the platform protects that.
- “for that one video only”
- Perpetuity sounds scary but it's fine when it's scoped to a single video. You're not handing over the song forever, just this one placement.
What should you charge for a creator license?
Nobody publishes a rate card because there isn't one. These are negotiated ranges compiled from industry sources, not disclosed deals, so treat them as a starting point and read the room. The biggest factors are the project's budget and scope, the territory, exclusivity, how long the use runs, and the size of the creator's audience.
| Use case | Typical range | |
|---|---|---|
| Micro-sync (TikTok / Reels clip) | Social clip | $5 to $500 |
| Small YouTube creator, under 100K subs | Non-commercial vlog | $50 to $500 |
| Mid-tier creator, 100K to 1M subs | Standard video | $200 to $2,000 |
| Large creator / influencer campaign | Multi-post | $500 to $5,000+ |
| Brand-sponsored YouTube content (small brand) | Sponsored | $1,000 to $10,000 |
A few rules of thumb from the artist side. Non-commercial use by a small creator sits at the bottom of the range. The second a brand is paying the creator, you're in brand-deal territory and the number jumps, because the music is now part of something selling a product. And anyone asking for worldwide exclusivity in perpetuity on a flat fee should either pay a lot more or get told no. Scope the grant tightly and the price takes care of itself.
Before you send the license, check your metadata
The license is only as clean as the codes in it. If your ISRC and ISWC are missing or wrong, the deal is harder to track and your performance royalties can go unmatched later.
How your PRO handles the deal: SOCAN vs ASCAP and BMI
Your performing rights organization (PRO) does not issue your sync license. ASCAP, BMI, and SOCAN all run blanket licenses that cover public performance only. The sync itself you negotiate directly, as the rights holder. But what each PRO does around that deal differs between the two countries, and that difference matters.
In the US, ASCAP and BMI don't issue sync licenses and don't need to approve or even be told about your deal. You sign it yourself. Then, when the video runs and racks up plays or airs on TV, the composition earns performance royalties, and those flow to your PRO through its normal monitoring (cue sheets for broadcast, digital tracking online). No separate notification of the sync deal is required for that to happen. You sign the sync, you keep the fee, and the performance royalties arrive on their own afterward.
Canada is different in one concrete way. SOCAN administers both performance rights and reproduction rights. It absorbed the mechanical and sync side when it acquired SODRAC in 2018. So SOCAN can administer your sync licensing for you if you want it to. It's an opt-in, non-exclusive service, and it only issues a license after you've approved that specific deal. The commission is 10%, dropping to 5% on international royalties, and it pays out biweekly once you clear CAD $250, which is faster than the standard quarterly schedule. ASCAP and BMI offer nothing like that.
| Canada (SOCAN) | US (ASCAP / BMI) | |
|---|---|---|
| Will the PRO administer the sync? | Optional, opt-in, non-exclusive, approval per deal | No, the PRO never touches sync |
| Commission if it administers | 10% (5% on foreign) | Not applicable |
| Notify the PRO of the deal? | Not required; tracked via cue sheets and digital monitoring | Not required |
| Performance royalties after the placement | Collected by SOCAN automatically | Collected through the blanket license automatically |
One Canadian extra: AV Post-Sync
SOCAN also collects an AV Post-Sync royalty, paid by broadcasters and platforms when they make server copies of audiovisual content with your synced music in it. It's separate from both your upfront sync fee and your performance royalties. You only collect it if you opt into SOCAN Reproduction Rights; performing-rights membership alone doesn't enroll you. There's no equivalent royalty stream in the US.
In both countries you sign the sync yourself and the performance royalties come back to you automatically. Canada gives you an optional path to have SOCAN handle the sync paperwork (for a cut), plus an extra reproduction royalty you have to opt in to collect.
Performance royalties are separate from the upfront fee
Don't conflate the two pots of money. The sync fee is the one-time number you negotiated for the placement. The performance royalties are the ongoing trickle that happens every time the finished video gets played in public: on YouTube, on TV, wherever. The composition side flows to your PRO. The sound recording's digital performance is collected separately, by SoundExchange in the US and through Re:Sound in Canada.
So a single creator placement can pay you twice over time: once up front for the license, then again, smaller and ongoing, as performance royalties as the video accumulates plays. That's exactly why the metadata matters. If your registrations and codes are clean, that back-end money finds you. If they're not, it sits unmatched.
Frequently asked questions
Can I register my own music with YouTube Content ID so I get paid when creators use it without a license?+
Yes, and you should, but usually not directly. Content ID is only open to rights holders with a substantial body of original material that's frequently uploaded, so most independent artists access it through their distributor (DistroKid, TuneCore, CD Baby) or a Content ID partner. Once your music is in the system, YouTube can route ad revenue from videos using your track back to you instead of leaving it with the uploader. For SOCAN members, Content ID is also the mechanism that generates the data SOCAN uses to pay you YouTube royalties.
If I license my track to one creator, can I still license it to other creators at the same time?+
Yes, as long as the license is non-exclusive, which is the normal default. Non-exclusive means you can keep licensing the same track to as many creators and brands as you want simultaneously. Only sign exclusive if the number reflects every other deal you're giving up.
Do I need a lawyer to write a music license for a YouTube creator?+
For a small, one-track, non-commercial placement, a clear one-page agreement that names the works, the use, the territory, the term, exclusivity, and the fee will usually do the job. Where I'd bring in a lawyer is on a real brand deal: anything with sizable money, broad exclusivity, or sublicensing to a third party. The cost of a lawyer is small next to a five-figure deal with vague terms.
What's the difference between a sync license and a master use license?+
The sync license covers the composition. The master use license covers the recording, the specific audio file. They're two different copyrights, and both have to be cleared. If you wrote and recorded the track, you own and grant both at once.
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