The short answer fits in one sentence: a track taken from the general TikTok or Instagram music library cannot be used in a video commissioned by a brand. The licence that makes the track available inside the app covers personal, organic use. It covers neither promoting a product, nor paid advertising, nor reuse anywhere else.
Why one authorisation is never enough
A song carries two distinct rights, and they belong to different people.
The first is copyright in the work itself, the composition and the lyrics. In France it is most often managed collectively by Sacem on behalf of authors, composers and publishers.
The second covers the specific recording you hear: the neighbouring rights of the performer and of the producer, meaning the label. Two different recordings of the same song belong to two different sets of rights holders.
Put differently, an authorisation obtained on the composition says nothing about the recording, and the reverse is equally true. That is why "I paid for a licence" is an incomplete sentence until you know which one. A royalty-free instrumental cover may therefore be perfectly usable whereas the original release of the same song is not usable at all.
What a platform licence actually covers
The agreements between platforms and rights holders make a catalogue available inside the app, for non-commercial posts. They transfer no right to the advertiser, and they do not follow the video once it leaves.
That is exactly what TikTok signals by separating its general library from its Commercial Music Library, reserved for commercial use and business accounts.
The four moments where it breaks
| Source of the track | Creator's organic post | Brand's paid advertising | Reuse off-platform |
|---|---|---|---|
| General music library | Tolerated on a personal account | No | No |
| Platform's commercial library | Yes | Yes, on that platform | No |
| Purchased music licence | Depends on the licence | Depends on the licence | Depends on the licence |
| Original sound or voice only | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The third row is the one that misleads most often. A licence bought from a music bank is not a universal authorisation: it has a scope, a term and a list of media, and a "social media" licence covers neither a television spot nor an in-store screen.
The second row deserves the same caution. A platform's commercial library holds good on that platform; reusing the same video on the brand's own site or in a YouTube campaign steps outside the frame, whereas the file itself has not changed.
Switching to paid advertising
This is the most common trigger. A video published by the creator with a trending sound runs for weeks without incident, then the brand pushes it through Spark Ads or whitelisting, and the claim arrives.
Nothing changed in the file, everything changed in the use: paid distribution is commercial exploitation, and it falls outside the organic licence.
Who carries the risk
The advertiser, in the vast majority of cases, even when the creator chose the sound. The brand is the party drawing a commercial benefit from the distribution, and it is the party rights holders identify first, usually because it is also the easiest to reach.
The creator is not off the hook either: if they warranted in the contract that the track was clear for commercial use and it was not, the brand turns to them. In practice both parties lose the video, and only one of them also loses the media budget.
The contract does not remove that risk, it organises it. Three clauses are enough:
- Explicitly bar general-library sounds from any delivery intended for the brand.
- Require either the platform's commercial library or music supplied by the brand with its licence.
- Ask for a written warranty from the creator on where the sound came from, and keep it.
The creator's usual objection
"The music was offered inside the app, so it is allowed." It is allowed for what the app lets you do, not for what the brand wants to do with it. Technical availability is not a commercial licence, and no platform claims otherwise in its own terms.
What to check before the shoot
The sound is decided at the brief, not in the edit. A brand that sends its licensed track along with the brief removes the question at source, and the creator cuts straight to it.
When the creator picks the track, the check comes down to two questions: where the sound came from, and under which licence. A screenshot of the commercial library or the receipt from the music bank is enough to document the answer.
What actually happens when a claim lands
The mildest outcome is the audio being muted: the video stays online, silent, and an edit cut to the beat becomes unreadable.
Next comes a block in certain countries, which leaves the campaign live elsewhere and distorts every performance measurement.
The most expensive is outright removal, often at the moment the video starts to perform, which is when it is worth most. On top of that can come a compensation claim from the rights holders, separate from the platform's own sanction.
There is also what the sanction does not say: media budget already spent on a removed video does not come back, and a campaign built around a single asset is left without a creative overnight. That is why the soundtrack is treated as a production dependency, exactly like the rights to the creator's image.
Sources
- French intellectual property code, article L122-4
- Sacem, music broadcasting authorisation
- TikTok, Commercial Music Library
- TikTok, Music Usage Confirmation
Checked on 7 September 2026. This guide is not legal advice. Where this guide and the official source disagree, the source prevails.
