Who pays for the music in my videos?

What it is, in plain words

Think of renting a car. Paying the rental fee does not let you drive it anywhere you like. The contract says who may drive, in which countries, and whether you can use it for a delivery business. Hand the keys to a friend who is not on the contract, and you are no longer covered.

A music licence works the same way. It is permission to use a track, with conditions attached. The words people use around it are often misread:

• Royalty-free means you do not pay again every time the video is played. It does not mean free, and it does not mean there are no rules. You still need a licence.
• Licensed music is any track you have permission for: bought one by one, covered by a subscription to a music library, or included in a platform’s own library.
• Free music can still come with conditions. YouTube’s Audio Library, for example, says some of its tracks use a Creative Commons licence, and for those “you must credit the artist in your video’s description.”
• Copyrighted music with no licence (the song you heard on the radio) is the one that gets videos claimed, muted or blocked.

So the useful question is not “is this song royalty-free?” It is: whose licence covers this video, on which platform, for which use?

A concrete example

Say a small coffee roaster hires an editor for four Reels and one YouTube video a month. The editor drops a nice track under each video, delivers on time, and everyone is happy.

Three months later:

1. The YouTube video gets a copyright claim. The track came from the editor’s paid music subscription, and the licence covers channels registered under the editor’s account, not the roaster’s channel. Content ID does not know who the editor is.
2. The roaster wants to run one Reel as a paid ad. The licence covered organic posts. Paid advertising is a different use, and some licences price it separately or exclude it.
3. The editor moves on. Nobody wrote down which track came from where, so nobody can prove the licence, and the roaster has to guess which videos are safe.

Nobody acted in bad faith. The licence question simply went unasked.

Platform music libraries add one more case. Instagram, TikTok and YouTube let you pick music inside their apps while you post. That is a different thing from a finished file the editor delivers with a song already mixed in: the in-app pick happens on your account, under that platform’s own terms, while a song baked into the file needs a licence of its own. Ask the editor which of the two you are getting, and do not assume the app’s library covers a file made outside it.

Why it matters when you hire someone

The video goes out under your name, on your channel or ad account. If the music is not covered, the problem lands on you, not on the editor.

What can go wrong when the buyer does not know this:

• The video is blocked or earns for someone else. YouTube’s help page lists what a rights owner can do after a match: block the video, run ads on it, or track it. It adds that Shorts of one to three minutes “will be blocked if there is an active claim applied, regardless of policy.”
• A fix costs another round. YouTube lets you mute or trim the claimed part, or swap the song for one from the Audio Library. That changes the video you paid for, and if you do not have the project file, you are back to the same editor for every swap. Agree in advance whether a music swap after a claim counts as a fix or a new change, as in asking for changes after delivery.
• Disputing is not a free retry. YouTube says it “doesn’t mediate copyright disputes,” and that disputing without a valid reason can lead to a removal request and a copyright strike on the channel. You need to know the licence to dispute in good faith.
• Ads need their own permission. If you plan to run a video as a paid ad, the music licence has to cover paid use, on top of the usage rights you agree with any creator who appears in it.

This page is not legal advice. It is what a buyer needs to know to ask the right questions before the first order.

What to ask the editor

Put the answers in the “Music” field of the video editor brief, before the first video:

A good answer names a source and a licence for each track. “It’s royalty-free, don’t worry” is not yet an answer. For a test, upload the first export privately and check whether a claim appears before you approve the batch. That is one of the acceptance lines for this job, and it is far cheaper to catch a claim on one test video than on a whole month of posts.