Frequently Asked Questions

What types of licenses do I need to add music to my app?

To use music on your platform with any visual components, there are four main rights you must secure:

● Mechanical Rights
● Performance Rights
● Sync Rights
● Master Rights

Songclip secures and passes through all necessary rights for your given use case.

Who issues the rights I need?

The rights required are issued by multiple parties:

● Both Mechanical and Sync Rights are issued by Music Labels and Publishers
● Performance Rights are issued by Performing Rights Organizations
● Master Rights are issued by Music Labels

Songclip serves as your single point of contact to handle all of the requirements you need for a successful, compliant music integration.

How do I obtain these rights?

You can obtain these rights yourself by working with a lawyer and approaching the rights holders directly: labels, publishers, and performing rights organizations. Given the number of licensors involved, this process can be extremely expensive and time-consuming.

You can work directly with a third-party aggregator (such as Songclip), which offers the most affordable, and fastest way to integrate compliant music.
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Songclip is the only company with pass-through licenses from both labels and publishers. A single partnership with Songclip gives you access to the catalogs from all of our label and publisher partners.

Who owns a song?

There are multiple rights-owners on each and every song. Labels own the sound recording and publishers own the underlying lyrics and composition.

Publishers represent songwriters. Since most songs have more than one writer, multiple publishers usually have ownership on a single song, making publishing rights fragmented and complex.

Major Labels include:

● Universal Music Group
● Warner Music Group
● Sony Music Entertainment

Major Publishers include:

● Universal Music Publishing
● Warner Chappell
● Sony Music Publishing
● Kobalt
● BMG

Songclip is a trusted partner of the major labels, publishers and more than 7,500 independents.

How can Songclip help simplify this process?

Songclip is the only company with pass-through licenses from both the major labels and the major publishers, reporting and technology capabilities, an easy-to-integrate API, and a user interface that exposes only 100% cleared and searchable content.

We work in direct partnership with major labels, publishers, and more than 7,500 independents to offer a streamlined solution for licensing, reporting, and compliance.

How long will this take and how much will it cost me?

Direct deals on your own or with a lawyer can take anywhere from 18 months to 2 years, with costs ranging upwards of $1MM in legal fees alone.

With Songclip, deals can take anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months, with costs set forth by the industry and scaled to fit your audience and business model.

Songclip saves you time, money, and developmental resources by providing both label licensing and reporting and publisher licensing and reporting as a one-stop-shop for all your licensing and reporting requirements.

When should I secure my licenses?

Songclip expedites both licensing and time to market, so we recommend reaching out to us after you’ve secured funding and when you’re approximately 60 days away from launch.

If you are going direct to both labels and publishers, we recommend getting started after you’ve secured funding and are one to two years out from launch. Yes, it takes that long without Songclip!

What happens after a deal is in place with the rights holders?

If you’re going at it without Songclip, you’ll need:
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● A compliant catalog
● Audio file and metadata delivery
● Secure back-end infrastructure for hosting and delivering songs
● Pipeline process to maintain compliance
● Discovery, search, and management tools (search, meta-tags, etc)
● Reporting technology

In addition to licensing, Songclip provides all of the above tools and technology including a cleared and compliant content feed; reporting infrastructure; data mapping; royalty payment administration; and a client-facing portal to make a music feature on your platform as straightforward as possible.

What’s the difference between licensing music in the US vs. the World?

For global licensing, more than 60+ Collective Management Organizations need to be approached for music publishing on a territory-by territory basis.

Rights themselves are often split by repertoire and musical shares. There is no such thing as a single, global-sync license.

The Songclip team is here to help you understand and navigate the complexities of the industry, including terminology and rights-management organizations. We do the hard work, so you don’t have to!

Can my users clip their own clips?

While not standard in our API Documentation or our packaging, we do provide the functionality of a scrubber tool so your users can create and clip their own clips.

This feature requires specific approval from rights-holders, which can be easily facilitated with Songclip.

Songclip works alongside developers to continually support their needs. Our highly customizable API and all-star support team can customize many of the API features to fit your unique music requirements.

Can Songclip license full songs?

We do not license full-length songs at this time. The duration of our clips scale up to 60 seconds. If you’re looking for full-length licensing, Songclip may not be the best solution for your needs.

Songclip music clips are curated by our in-house content team, meta-tagged, and searchable by a variety of different search parameters. Our library of music clips is specifically designed for quick communication, expression and creation.

Can I choose the duration of clips available to users in my app?

Yes. Our API includes a feature to filter the maximum and minimum duration of clip results.

You can review our API Documentation here.

The Songclip API is built for flexibility and can be customized to fit your unique use case.

What territories do you cover?

At this time, Songclip covers the US and EMEA markets. Songclip is constantly expanding to new markets in order to achieve global coverage of our service.

What’s the process for working with Songclip?

Schedule an intro call using the Get Started button on our homepage to get started.

After our initial call, Songclip will provide robust follow-up material and documentation, including Sandbox access to evaluate our potential partnership.

The Songclip onboarding process can happen within a week; on average, the integration takes about a week. The licensing process takes about 30-60 days.

Where is your API Documentation?

You can find and review our API documentation by clicking here.

Songclip’s tech and support team is happy to review any questions and solve any unique customization on a case-by-case basis.

Is Songclip always a white-label solution, regardless of the pricing tier?

Yes, Songclip is the only turn-key white label solution that can be customized for different libraries, budgets, and use-cases.

What trending music / Billboard Hot 100 music do you offer in each of your pricing tiers?

Songclip strives to offer the most popular, trending music with full compliance. In each tier, you can view our “Trending” category, updated regularly, which showcases the most popular tracks on Spotify and the Billboard Hot 100.

Songclip works with the major labels and publishers and more than 7,500 independents to offer a compliant library that covers more than 90% of the top airplay charts.

Can my users share Songclip music clips to other social media platforms?

Yes, your users can share their creations to other licensed social platforms. Most major social platforms have music licensing, but once a creation leaves your platform, the rights of the platform the asset is shared to take precedence.

How many songs are available in each tier?

The number of songs in each tier varies on a daily basis as new licensors are added, more music is cleared by publishing and new content is ingested.

As a baseline:
● GA: 350k+ songs
● Floor: 500k+ songs
● VIP: 1.5M+ songs

Songclip is constantly growing and expanding our music industry partnerships to offer the most robust popular music library for our clients and to maintain newness and relevancy in each tier.

Does Songclip offer customized pricing plans or music content offerings?

Songclip does not set or control the price of music. In partnership with the music labels and publishers, Songclip passes through a rate that is set at the sole discretion of music IP owners.

Songclip has successfully partnered with music IP owners (labels and publishers) to design pricing tiers that accommodate a variety of different use cases and varying budgets.

If our content offerings do not meet your needs, we encourage you to contact us to explore additional options.

Songclip’s client-facing portal gives you the freedom to customize content offerings to your end-users as you see fit.

Why can’t we get all the music that TikTok has?

TikTok’s music catalog is a summation of several factors: 1) they pay more to the rights-owners than any other app and 2) there is a lot of independent music released and uploaded to their platform.

Is there a deposit?

Yes, Songclip requires a deposit of 25% of your contract’s value. It is refundable if the labels and publishers do not approve your app. If your app is approved but you choose not to move forward, you will forfeit your deposit.

Are there any unforeseen fees or charges?

We provide complete transparency on our proposals, breaking out your licensing fees from. Songclip’s tech and service fees. Pricing does vary based on your use case, audience size and business model, so there may be some nuances in your pricing proposal based on these factors. The music industry requires 30% of revenue.

How fast can we get licensed music in our app?

You can be up and running in as fast as three months. Due to the complex nature of all the music industry parties involved, there have been instances where deals have taken up to 12 months to complete.

What is the customer experience like?

Songclip provides a highly personalized and customized experience. You can rest easy knowing our customer success guru will be there to help you with any questions you may have.

How close to launch do we need to be to secure licensed music?

If you’re working with Songclip (vs. going direct), we recommend beginning the licensing process 90 days prior to your anticipated launch. Approvals from rights-owners vary but typically take 60 days.

I can’t find an artist or song when I search for it?

Songclip works with the major labels, publishers, and more than 7,500 independent licensors. All music is subject to and limited by 100% publisher clearance, which sometimes limits search results.

If you can’t find an artist, it’s possible one of a few things might be happening:
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● That artist is an excluded artist from our blanket licenses and requires special permission to license.
● That artist is not distributed by one of the licensors we work with.
● That artist’s music has publisher shares either unknown or unlicensed with Songclip.

What do you mean that Songclip has “true” pass-through licensing?

Most solutions are providing reporting and only offer licensing consulting. You will still need to get your own licenses. You’ll need direct deals with at least 4 different entities to get started:
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● Label Licensor
● Label Reporting
● Partner Publishing
● Licensor Publishing
● Reporting Partner

To boot, you’ll need to do even more deals if you want to offer an expansive music catalog. Luckily, Songclip is the only company with pass-through licenses from both labels and publishers. A single partnership with Songclip gives you access to the catalogs from all of our label and publisher partners.

Will I need to involve our legal team?

While we work with experienced music lawyers, we are not a company of lawyers and we strongly recommend that your legal team review all contracts associated with your business regardless of what they are :)

Frequently Asked Questions

Ready to add music as a feature to your app?