You are about to post the piece and the music is missing. You open the platform's library, pick a track that fits perfectly, and the video goes out. Two weeks later a content claim notice arrives, the video is restricted in some countries, and the brand asks what happened.
The answer is almost never that you used pirated music. It is that you used a track under a licence that did not cover what you did with it. And that happens because a single song does not carry one right, it carries two.
A song carries two separate rights
Law 11.723 protects works, and in music that splits into two planes that live apart and are negotiated apart.
There is the work itself, the composition: the melody and the lyrics, with its author and its publisher. And there is the specific recording you are using, with its performers and the record producer who registered it.
Using a commercial track in a commercial video touches both. Which is why the case that confuses everybody exists: getting permission for the song and still not being able to use that version. You have the work and you are missing the recording. And which is why re-recording your own version exists as a route, solving the second plane and leaving the first untouched.
The platform library is not an advertising licence
This is the misunderstanding that produces most claims, and it is not the creator's fault: the libraries sit inside the editing app, they are used with one tap and nothing warns you.
What those libraries typically allow is use within that platform and for non commercial or branded content under conditions that change. What a UGC video almost always does is the opposite: it is delivered to a brand, reused on another network, put behind paid media and sometimes uploaded from the company's own account.
The moment the piece becomes a third party's advertising, the library licence stops describing what is happening. Not because anybody cheated, but because the piece changed nature after the music was chosen.
The three routes that do work
There are three clean paths, and it pays to choose before editing rather than after.
A catalogue with a commercial licence
Music bought for the intended use, from a catalogue that expressly names advertising and social media. It is the boring route and it is the one that does not come back.
What you read is not the price but the scope: which media it covers, in which territories, for how long, and whether it includes paid distribution. Two licences at the same price can cover very different things, and the difference shows up the day the brand decides to put money behind the video.
Commissioned original music
It costs more than a catalogue licence and less than people think, and it has an advantage that shows from the second campaign: the sound becomes the brand's and can be reused without paying per use again.
The condition that makes it work is contractual and always forgotten: you have to ask for assignment of rights over the work and over the recording, both, in writing. Commissioning music and keeping only the file is exactly the mistake this article is trying to prevent.
No music at all
The most underrated route in formats where somebody talks to camera: ambient audio and a clean voice work better than a generic bed, and they remove the problem entirely.
It also has a side effect worth knowing: a piece without music can be translated and re-adapted without touching the audio again, which makes it cheaper to reuse in another market.
What changes when the client is abroad
An Argentine creator invoicing a foreign brand has one more detail to look at, and it is the one that produces territory blocks.
Licences are granted by territory and by medium. A piece designed for Argentina that later runs in Mexico or Spain may fall outside what was licensed, and the block appears only when the campaign expands, which is when it hurts most.
The conversation that prevents this takes a minute and comes before editing: ask which countries the piece will run in and for how long, and choose the music with that answer in hand.
What to put in writing
- Who provides the music and under what licence. If the brand provides it, have them say so in writing and state the scope.
- For which territories and for how long. A licence with no stated territory is useless for a campaign with media behind it.
- What happens if there is a claim. Who answers and who handles it, because the claim lands on the account that uploaded the video.
- The licence file, stored. A receipt you cannot find is the same as not having one.
Point three is the one most worth negotiating and the one nobody negotiates. When the brand provides the music, it is reasonable that it also carries the claim; when the creator picks it, the reverse. What does not work is the brand picking it and the restriction landing on the creator's channel.
The trending audio objection
The objection is real: a good share of reach on these platforms comes from using the sound of the moment, and that sound is usually a commercial track.
One distinction helps decide. A piece the creator posts on their own account, with no paid media and no delivery to the brand, lives inside the platform's ecosystem and its conditions. A piece that is delivered, promoted or reposted from the company's account has left that ecosystem, and there the trending audio stops being free.
The practical way to have both worlds is two versions: the organic one with the sound of the moment, and the deliverable with licensed music or none. It is half an hour of editing and it avoids the awkward conversation three weeks later.
Sources
Checked on 12 September 2026. This guide is not legal advice. Music rights involve collective management bodies: check the exact scope of each licence with whoever grants it.
