Definitive Guide to Music Licensing for Live Streaming

Being a content creator nowadays often requires you to tackle multiple challenges thrown your way at once. In order to stand out, you must be an entertainer, a teacher, a conversationalist, and even a DJ for your audience. On the other hand, live streaming is a different kind of animal.

While publishing a piece of pre-recorded video or audio content offers you the commodity of a double-check, live streaming does not. Whatever you instinctively put out for the world to consume is there to stay, and no errors are forgiven.

As one of the key elements in music live streaming and content creation in general, music can be quite notorious. Not only do you have to personally hand-pick the tracks you’re going to play in the background, but you must ensure that you abide by all music copyright compliance regulations, including proper licensing.

Stick around to learn everything you need to know about music licensing for live streaming in order to protect your livelihood and online reputation.

Table of Contents

• What Is Music Licensing?
• Failing To Comply With Music Copyright Laws
• Types of Music Licenses for Live Streaming
• How To Secure Music Licensing for Live Streaming
• Music Licensing Costs: What To Expect?
• How To Stay Compliant With Music Licensing Laws
• Real-Life Examples of Music Licensing for Live Streaming
• Live Streaming and Music Licensing: Final Thoughts
• FAQs

What Is Music Licensing?

Securing music rights for online streaming is an absolute must when creating live content. Every piece of published audio is considered to be the intellectual property of its creator. Unless it’s marked as free to use, anyone featuring it as a part of their live content strategy is required by music copyright laws to obtain the appropriate copyright clearance for live streaming.

Streaming music legally is a concept often overlooked by aspiring content creators trying to cut a few corners. That is until they face the legal risks of unlicensed streaming, which can be rather rigorous in certain situations. In case your pockets are running a little tight, you can always resort to royalty-free music for live streaming until your budget increases. 

Types of Music Licenses

Before we get into how to license music for streaming, we must first familiarize ourselves with the different types of licenses out there. Let’s have a look at the ones you’ll need: 

• Synchronization license: Commonly referred to as a sync license and used by most content creators, covering the use of re-recorded music in a video and audio content for monetization. 

• Public performance license: Providing the licensee permission to play copyrighted music publicly in a monetized manner or in other words, music licensing for live streaming.

• Mechanical license: Allowing the licensee to reproduce, sample a portion, or create a cover of a copyright-protected composition. 

• Master license: Transferring the licensee the rights to the original recording of the song. 

Failing To Comply With Music Copyright Laws 

There is not a single live content-sharing platform out there that isn’t a strong advocate of legal music use for streaming. As soon as you press that ‘Go live’ button, hundreds of content ID systems start scouring both your video and audio, searching for signs of plagiarism and copyright infringement. Not only the ones on the online video platforms, but also the ones of music licensing platforms.

If your live stream is flagged for unfair use of another person’s intellectual property, your account is going to be penalized or, in a worst-case scenario, banned. On top of that, you might receive a phone call from the legal team representing the creator of the musical piece claiming damages, which can reach up to $150,000.

Types of Music Licenses for Live Streaming

Now that we’ve covered the basics of what a copyright for live streaming music is, let’s explore the streaming music licenses a bit further and understand their role in a live environment. In some cases, you might need to secure just one, but in others, you will need multiple. 

Public Performance License

Considering that the public performance license is the most important one to obtain for live streaming, it will be your content’s best friend. This type of license grants you the rights to perform a song publicly for a live audience. This also includes playing a recording of a musical piece online in a visual format, audio format, or a combination of both.

Synchronization License

By definition, obtaining synchronization rights means that the licensee is granting permission to synchronize a song with a combination of moving images on a screen or video. This includes television, film advertisements, and any kind of online video content, including live streams. 

If the live content you create does not feature a visual aspect to it, a synchronization license is not necessary. 

Mechanical Use License

A mechanical use license refers to the licensor giving permission to the licensee to release a song in an audio-only format. This includes interactive audio streams, digital downloads, as well as the distribution of CDs and vinyl records. 

Live streaming in an audio-only format. 

Master License 

If you release a video or interactive audio stream of any kind featuring an existing audio recording that’s considered someone else’s intellectual property, you need to secure a master license. The rules remain the same even if it’s just a small sample of the audio recording in question. 

How To Secure Music Licensing for Live Streaming

Like any other aspect of content creation, obtaining music licenses for live events requires some prior research. You, as a creator using another creator’s copyrighted music piece, have the responsibility of locating where that music is available for licensing and reaching out to the appropriate representatives. 

Music publishers sometimes deal with these matters personally. However, they are typically represented by music licensing companies such as ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, PRS Licensing, and more. In other cases, a publisher or a record label might be the only way for you to secure public performance rights on a song.

Once you reach out to the right people, you will be instructed as to what your next steps for getting music clearance for streaming should be. 

Music Licensing Costs: What To Expect?

If the musical piece you want to license is regulated by a music licensing company such as BMI, you are looking at an annual fee of about $250 to $400. If you are representing a bigger organization, licensing fees might jump to $2,000 per year. A part of the sum is then paid out to the creator in the form of music royalties and live streaming of the track is allowed. 

In many cases, however, it might simply be enough to reach out to the artists themselves. If they are representing themselves, you will most likely secure the necessary licensing for your live content at a more cost-effective rate. 

How To Stay Compliant With Music Licensing Laws

For most live creators, the biggest problem typically turns out to be the proper music rights management for online content. Yes, when you obtain licensing on copyrighted music, you do pay an upfront fee. However, in many cases, this is not where the story ends. When signing a licensing agreement, keep in mind that they do come with an expiration date attached to them. 

You can perceive a music license as an annual subscription to a product or a service. As long as you keep using that product or service, you will need to pay the associated fees. Keeping notes on when your fair-use music licenses expire is the key to successful digital rights management.

Real-Life Examples of Music Licensing for Live Streaming

One of the most popular live streaming platforms out there is, of course, Twitch. While the platform does have deals in place with performance rights organizations like ASCAP and BMI, they have no licensing deals with Universal Music Group, Sony Music, or Warner Music Group. Considering that record companies control who uses the music they own, Twitch live streamers are on their own when it comes to securing music licensing. 

If a streamer is caught with copyright infringement, the content containing the music will be taken down by Twitch in compliance with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). By taking advantage of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), RIAA has managed to slap Twitch with 38,500 takedown notices this year alone. 

Live Streaming and Music Licensing: Final Thoughts

By now, you are probably well aware of how music licensing affects the live-streaming industry. Even though just vibing to a song you like on your favorite video platform seems like a harmless deed, musicians, record labels, and licensing companies all strongly disagree. If you really think about it, they do have a fair point. 

A musician is required to invest finances and decades worth of hard work into perfecting their craft and getting it to the point where it is. Record labels invest big chunks of their capital into bringing these songs to life and making sure they reach all corners of the world. Music licensing companies are just doing what they are hired to do. 

In the same way that you want to monetize your live content brand, musicians want to monetize theirs, and record companies want their money back.

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FAQs

What kinds of licenses do I need for streaming music legally? 

There are four music licenses in total, including a synchronization license, a live performance license, a mechanical license, and a master license. Which ones you need is determined by the nature of your live content. 

What are the most used music licensing platforms? 

Some of the most commonly used music licensing companies musicians work with include ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and PRS Licensing. 

How much does obtaining music licensing for live streaming cost? 

Depending on whether the artist represents themselves or is represented by an entity, you might be looking at anywhere between a couple of hundred dollars to a few thousand.