What does a music license actually cover?

You found the perfect track for your video, your podcast intro, or your game's main menu. You're about to license it. But before you do, there's a fair question that almost nobody answers clearly: what does that license actually let you do?

A music license isn't a purchase of the song. You're not buying the music itself - the artist still owns that. What you're buying is permission: a defined right to use that recording in a specific way, for a specific kind of project, in front of a specific audience. The whole job of a good license is to draw that line clearly so you never have to wonder whether you're allowed to do what you're about to do.

At Songfindr, every license we issue answers four questions. Once you understand those four, you understand your license.

1. What project is it for?

Every Songfindr license is tied to one specific project - one video, one game, one podcast series, one campaign, one client deliverable. That's the unit. If you license a track for your travel vlog, it's licensed for that vlog. Use the same track in an unrelated client ad, and that's a separate project that needs its own license.

The good news is that "one project" is generous about the things that should obviously be covered: re-cuts, shorter edits, derivative versions, and excerpts of the same project all stay licensed. If you publish a 12-minute video and then cut a 30-second teaser from it for Instagram, you don't need a second license. It's the same project.

So the rule of thumb is simple: a new, unrelated project means a new license. Everything that's genuinely part of the project you licensed for is already covered.

2. Where can you use it, and in front of how many people?

This is where the different tiers come in - and it's the part most people get wrong when they buy from generic stock-music sites.

Songfindr licenses are scoped to who you are and how big your audience is. We don't make a podcaster with 500 listeners pay the same as a brand running a national campaign, and we don't pretend a hobbyist license covers a commercial shoot. Here's how that breaks down in practice:

Personal creators (YouTubers, podcasters). If you're making personal content - your own channel, your own podcast - your license covers web and social use up to a follower ceiling and podcast use up to a monthly-download ceiling. Our starter tier covers up to 100,000 followers per platform and 1,000 monthly podcast downloads; the enhanced tier raises that to 1,000,000 followers and 10,000 downloads. These are personal-use licenses: no client work, and no paid advertising. The territory is worldwide and there's no limit on how long the music plays in your content.

Creators who do client work. The moment you're making content for someone else - a brand, a company, a paying client - you've crossed into commercial use, and you need a license that says so. Our professional-creator tier covers personal content plus client deliverables for organizations up to 250 employees, including internal and industrial use.

Independent filmmakers. Synchronization in films, short films, documentaries, and online video - including client and festival work - worldwide and perpetual. (Broadcast-TV and theatrical advertising is the one line this tier doesn't cross; that's a separate quote - more on that below.)

Indie game developers. Use in PC and mobile games (Steam, Epic, GOG, itch.io, iOS, Android), plus the game's own trailers and promo. Rights are **perpetual for every game title you register** while your subscription is active — meaning once a title is registered, the music stays licensed in that game forever, no matter how many copies you sell. This tier is for studios under €200,000 in annual revenue or funding.

Businesses and non-profits. Scoped by organization size (employee count) and covering marketing, social, web, and corporate video. Non-profits get a built-in 20% discount because mission-driven work isn't the same as selling something.

The pattern across all of these: the license matches your real situation. Pick the tier that honestly describes who you are, and the coverage follows.

3. How long do you keep the right to use it?

This is the question that trips people up most with subscriptions, so let's be precise.

If you buy a one-time license for a single track, that's yours for that project, permanently.

If you're on a subscription, here's the rule that matters: any project you start while your subscription is active stays licensed forever - even after you cancel. The right to use a track is locked in the moment you put it into a project during an active subscription. That use is perpetual.

What the subscription gates is *starting new projects.* Once your subscription ends, you can't begin a brand-new project with our music until you reactivate. But everything you already made stays fully licensed, and any track you downloaded while subscribed, you can re-download anytime.

And one reassuring detail: if you cancel, you keep access through the end of the period you already paid for. The cut-off is your plan's end date, not the day you click cancel.

4. What's not covered?

A license is as much about the limits as the permissions, and we'd rather you know the edges up front than discover them later. A few things are never included in a standard Songfindr license, on any tier:

• No reselling or sublicensing. You can't hand the music to a third party, repackage it as a stock asset, or sell the soundtrack on its own. You licensed it for your use.
• No using it as a logo, jingle, or trademark. A license to use a track in your content isn't a license to make it your brand's permanent sonic identity.
• No AI training. Our music can't be used to train machine-learning or AI models.
• Personal tiers stay personal. No client work and no paid advertising on the personal-creator licenses - that's what the commercial tiers are for.

And some uses are big enough that they always need a custom quote rather than a self-serve license:

• Broadcast, TV, cinema, theatrical, VOD/OTT, and radio — anything in the "extended coverage" world.
• Console games (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch) and large studios above the indie threshold.
• Celebrity-scale creators (over 1M followers / 10k podcast downloads beyond the standard tiers).
• Enterprises of 250+ employees.

None of these are off-limits - they just deserve a proper conversation and a price that fits the scale. Email us and we'll sort it out.

The short version

A Songfindr music license is permission to use one track, in one project, on the platforms and at the audience size your tier covers, worldwide - and if you're subscribed, that permission is perpetual for every project you start while you're a member.

Pick the tier that honestly matches who you are and what you're making, and you're covered. If your project is bigger than the tiers allow, that's not a wall - it's just a quick email to get the right license. Either way, the goal is the same: you should always know exactly what you're allowed to do with the music you love, before you hit publish.

Questions about a specific use case? Reach us at [email protected] - we write these licenses, so we can tell you exactly where your project lands.