Can Brands Use Popular Music on Instagram and TikTok?

The Short Answer

Three separate things get mistaken for one another: availability, monetization and clearance.

A track is available when a distributor has delivered it, so it turns up in search. A track is monetized when the platform tracks its use and accounts to the rights holder. A track is cleared when a brand holds the right to use it in advertising or branded content.

Availability and monetization happen on their own. Clearance never does.

The platforms say as much. Accepting their terms does not move the responsibility onto them. It leaves it with the brand.

TikTok keeps its general music library apart from its Commercial Music Library and tells businesses to use the second one. Meta describes its ordinary licensed library as intended for personal, non-commercial use, and points commercial users at Sound Collection instead.

So the question is not whether the track is available. It is what rights have been granted for this recording, this content, this user, this platform, this territory, this placement and this period.

A Personal Account Does Not Make It Personal

A brand account is commercial. A company’s posts form part of its marketing, whether or not a product is on screen.

The rule matters in the other direction. A creator posting from a Personal account can be making commercial content too, and often is. Promoting a third-party brand, a product, a service, a sponsorship, an affiliate arrangement, or the poster’s own business all count.

TikTok’s own tools work this way. Creators posting content that promotes a brand, product or service have to disclose it, and are asked whether they are promoting their own brand or someone else’s. Meta’s Music Guidelines apply on the same functional basis, to anyone posting or promoting content containing music.

Content that looks editorial or lifestyle can still serve a commercial purpose in context, as part of a brand’s ongoing marketing or a creator’s promotion of their own business.

Why a Trending Sound Is the Worst Case

The track a team wants is usually the one they heard somewhere else that week. That is the hardest one to clear, for two reasons.

A mainstream hit sits in the platform’s general library because the platform has an arrangement with the rights holders, not because anyone cleared it for advertising. And a trending sound is often a re-upload, a sped-up edit or a bootleg uploaded without authorization, which involves different rights again. Remixes, covers, live takes, re-recordings and edits are separate recordings with separate owners.

The commercial catalogs have the opposite problem. TikTok’s CML and Meta’s Sound Collection exist to be pre-cleared, and the tracks in them are mostly not the ones dominating the feed.

What Meta Says

“The music available in our library is intended for personal, non-commercial use.”

Source: Meta Business Help Center

“To make sure that the music in our licensed library is not used for commercial purposes, certain business accounts and certain types of posts do not have access to the library. Licensed music may also not be available in certain countries or regions.”

Source: Meta Business Help Center

Access varies by country and by post type.

“Nothing in these terms constitutes any authorisation by us with respect to any use of music on any of our Products. Use of music for commercial or non-personal purposes in particular is prohibited unless you have obtained appropriate licenses.”

Source: Meta Music Guidelines

Read the first sentence again. Meta is not granting anything. The obligation to hold the license sits with whoever posts.

Being paid is not the same as being cleared. Meta states that eligibility for Music Revenue Sharing does not by itself make a video commercial, and it handles clearance in a different provision altogether. A rights holder earning from your post has not licensed you to run it as an advertisement.

Sound Collection is a different thing

Meta describes Sound Collection as royalty free and usable for commercial purposes such as advertising. The license is non-exclusive and royalty free, and it covers content you create, upload and distribute on Meta products only. It is not a general license for TikTok, YouTube, television, cinema, your website or a retail system.

Meta also states that Instagram Reels ads cannot use music from its licensed library, and recommends original audio or Sound Collection instead.

What TikTok Says

“The licenses we hold for music outside of the CML don’t cover the commercial use of music in content.”

Source: TikTok Support

TikTok states the Commercial Music Library holds over one million pre-cleared tracks. TikTok directs businesses there for commercial activity, including organic commercial content, video advertisements and branded content.

Platform rules differ by region and change without notice. Check the account type in Creative Center or Ads Manager at the time of posting.

How Brands Legally License a Mainstream Hit Song for Instagram or TikTok

There is a route. It is slower than picking a sound in the app, and it works.

1. Pin down the exact recording

Title and artist are not enough. You need the version or edit, the ISRC where you can get it, the composition and its publisher, and the label or master owner. A remix, a cover, a live take, a re-recording or a sped-up edit is a different recording with different owners.

2. Clear two rights, not one

Synchronization, from the publisher who controls the song. Master use, from whoever owns the recording. One without the other leaves you exposed. If the track contains samples or interpolations, there is more to clear underneath.

3. Write the scope into the license

Name the platforms. State organic and paid separately. Set the territory and the term. Say whether boosting is allowed, whether an agency and its client are both covered, whether a creator may post it from their own account, whether cross-posting is permitted, and whether the video may stay online after the term ends.

4. Get it in writing

Where anything is ambiguous, ask the licensor to confirm in writing that the exact recording and composition are cleared for the placements you have in mind, in the territories you need, for the period you need. Keep the answer with the license.

Budget is the part most teams underestimate. In our negotiation experience fees run from around $1,500 to over $1,000,000 per rights side, and sync and master are priced separately. Where a specific use lands depends on the artist, the track, the territory, the duration and the media type. Our page on what a sync license costs sets out the ranges.

Seven Things That Are Not Clearance

• It is on TikTok, so a business can use it. TikTok directs businesses away from the general library and toward the CML.
• A distributor delivered it, so it is cleared. Delivery explains availability and monetization. It does not establish advertising rights.
• It is in Instagram’s library, so Meta cleared it for ads. Meta separates its personal-use library from Sound Collection.
• The account is set to Creator. Broader technical access, same rights position.
• It is royalty free, so there are no restrictions. Royalty free is not a universal-use label.
• Another brand used it. That tells you one thing: another brand used it.
• The post was not muted. That tells you the platform took no action that day.

Royalty Free Is Not Rights Cleared

Royalty free means that use within the scope of one particular license does not carry recurring or per-use payments. It does not mean free of charge, free of copyright, cleared for every platform, cleared for paid advertising, cleared worldwide, or cleared for good.

Rights cleared means permission for a defined use. A track can be cleared for one brand, one campaign, Meta products only, one territory, one year, organic but not paid, paid but not television, or one client with no right to sublicense.

The license governs, not the marketing label.

If the Music Has Already Gone Out

A takedown pays the rights holder nothing. The audio goes quiet, sometimes the post disappears, and the campaign has usually finished its run by then. No money moves and the claim stays open.

From there the dispute usually moves to the number. What would a license for that recording, in that placement, in that territory, for that run have cost if someone had asked first?

How We Establish the Number

We determine what non-licensed music use is worth. Our xSV™ software prices a specific use against comparable deals and produces a market-conforming license fee. It was built by the two founders of Sync Valuations, Marcel Alexander Wiebenga and Nicholas van den Doel, on more than 40 years of sync negotiation between them.

Rights holders bring us claims. So do the businesses defending them. We run the same method against the same comparable deals whoever commissioned the report. We take one party per case.

The full analysis behind this page, with every platform term sourced, is in our whitepaper Platform Availability Is Not Commercial Clearance by Nicholas van den Doel, verified against platform terms current at 8 August 2026.

Frequently Asked

Can a business account use trending songs on Instagram or TikTok?

Not from the general library. TikTok directs businesses to the Commercial Music Library. Meta restricts access to its licensed library for certain business accounts and post types, and varies it by country. For anything outside the commercial catalogs you need synchronization and master-use rights of your own.

Does Meta’s licensed music library cover commercial purposes?

No. Meta states the library is intended for personal, non-commercial use, and that certain business accounts and post types do not have access to it. Sound Collection is the separate, royalty-free catalog Meta licenses for commercial use on its own products.

How does a business legally use a mainstream hit song on Instagram or TikTok?

By licensing it directly. You identify the exact recording, then clear two rights: synchronization from the publisher and master use from the owner of the recording. The license has to name the platforms, separate organic from paid, and set the territory and the term. Platform music libraries do not provide this.

Is a personal account allowed to use trending music commercially?

The account label does not settle it. Commerciality follows the use. A personal or creator account promoting a brand, product, service or the poster’s own business is making commercial content, and needs commercial clearance like anyone else.

Is organic content treated differently from paid ads?

Both need permission once the content is commercial. Boosting does change things on TikTok: Spark Ads converts an organic post into advertising, so clearance and Usable Placements have to be checked again.

What happens if a brand uses non-licensed music on TikTok or Instagram?

The platform may mute or remove the post. The rights holder receives nothing from that and the claim stays open, so they can approach the brand directly. From there it turns on what a license would have cost.