Should you tell a creator which sound to use?

You sell a clip-on bike light. The creator is booked, the offer and brief go out this week, and the video goes up on their TikTok account at the end of the month. Your plan has two more lines: a repost from your brand's TikTok account in launch week, and a cut of the video in your paid ads on Instagram in November. Someone on the team saved a reference video that runs on a sound everyone seems to be using this month, and asked you to put its name in the brief.

What should the brief say about sound?

Where the sound comes from. Which one matters only in the two cases further down.

A sponsored post is what TikTok's Commercial Music Library terms call a commercial use: the terms count advertising, endorsing or sponsoring a product on TikTok as one. For that use, they say, "Commercial Sounds are the only sounds made available on TikTok," and Commercial Sounds are the ones in that library. TikTok's business help center puts it from the business side: "Businesses cannot use the general music library for commercial usage," and branded content is on its list of the activities that should use the library instead.

The same help page leaves one other route open: for other licensed sounds in a post, it tells you to "consult your legal team" about the license. So the line has two possible answers: a sound from the Commercial Music Library, which TikTok provides for this use, or a sound your side has licensed, which TikTok doesn't. Even inside the library, the terms say some sounds may carry extra requirements, and the web version of the library marks the placements each sound is listed for, so the choice happens within what the library lists for that sound. These are TikTok's rules for its own platform, and none of this is legal advice; whether a particular sound may run where you plan to run it is a question for whoever handles your licensing. This article is about tracks and other library sounds, not a creator talking over their own video.

For the light: the line reads Sound: a track from TikTok's Commercial Music Library, listed for every TikTok placement in our plan. The Instagram line in the plan is the one that tests it, further down.

Why is that line yours to write?

Because it passes the test for a brief line, and a track name, outside the two cases, doesn't.

Our guide to what belongs in a creator brief gives one test for every line: "Take one line. Ask what you'd do if the draft came back ignoring it." A line stays when "You'd ask for a change, and you could finish this matters because… without saying the brief said so and without borrowing a reason another line already gives you."

For the light: run the library line through it. The draft comes back over a sound from the general music library. You'd ask for a change, and you can finish the sentence without the brief or any other line: the terms TikTok publishes don't license that sound for this video. It stays.

Now run a track name through it, for a track that isn't part of the meme format and isn't the only one licensed for every placement. The draft comes back over a different library track, listed for the same placements. That's the guide's third answer — "You'd be annoyed, and you'd let it go" — and the line is cut.

The two lines also land on different sides of the question our guide to what creator marketing is asks of every call: "If it decides what must be true, it's yours. If it decides how the video looks and sounds, it's the creator's." That the sound is allowed wherever the video runs, either a library sound listed for those placements or one your side has licensed, is something that must be true. Outside the two cases below, which track plays is how the video sounds, and that part you already handed over when you picked this creator.

When does a track name belong in the brief?

In two cases: the track is one of the parts that make the meme format recognizable and is a sound this video may use, or it is the only sound licensed for every placement. This section is the first case; the second comes up in the next one, with placements off TikTok.

Our guide to joining a TikTok trend says what to take from somebody else's video: "Strictly, you don't join a trend. You join the meme format underneath it." Its way of finding that structure starts with one instruction: "Write down the parts that, if you changed them, would stop people from recognizing it." That guide doesn't say whether sound is one of those parts. You find out by the same subtraction, applied to the structure under your reference rather than to the one video you saved: swap the track in your head and ask whether viewers would still recognize the meme format.

If they wouldn't, the track is part of the structure, and a draft on another track no longer follows it. That's a change you'd ask for, so the name earns a line. It still has to be a sound the video is allowed to use. If it isn't in the library and nobody on your side has licensed it, the structure isn't available for this post, and no wording in the brief makes it available.

One competitor's guide to TikTok UGC tells brands: "Encourage creators to blend trending sounds or formats with your product story." That sentence doesn't say which sounds. For a sponsored post, the library is where the answer starts.

For the light: your team looks the track up first. It isn't in the library and nobody on your side has licensed it, so it can't be named in this brief. That leaves the question of whether the post can still follow the reference. The meme format underneath it is a dark street, the clip snapping onto the handlebar, and the road lighting up; the sound is what everyone is using this month, but the switch from dark to lit is what the meme format runs on. Put another track under those three beats and viewers who know the meme format still recognize it. The sound isn't one of its parts, so the post can follow the reference on a library track, and the line stays the library line.

What changes if the video leaves TikTok?

A library sound's permission doesn't come with it.

For a commercial use, the library's terms keep a video with one of its sounds "within TikTok." Anywhere else, they say you need separate permission and a license directly from the sound's rights holders. The web version of the library also marks, sound by sound, the placements each one may be used on, and the terms treat any platform not marked there as not permitted unless the rights holders agree first.

So read your plan's placements again with one question. Our usage rights guide has you "underline every place the video appears that isn't the creator's own post". Mark each underline as on TikTok or off it. An underline on TikTok can run on a library sound the library lists for that placement. An underline off TikTok needs a sound its rights holders have licensed for that placement.

The terms put the deadline at the placement: by the time the cut runs off TikTok, its sound has to be licensed there. For the brief you're writing now, that comes down to two choices. Keep that placement out of the plan for this video, or get a sound licensed for every placement in the plan and name that sound in the brief. These are the two choices you can make with the brief, not every route there is; how a sound gets licensed, or replaced later, sits outside what the brief decides.

The second choice is the other case where a track name belongs: when one track is the only sound licensed for every placement, the sound line narrows to that track. The creator has no way to know which sound your side licensed, so the name is the line.

Licensing the sound doesn't settle the creator's usage rights. The sound's permission comes from whoever holds the rights to the sound, and the creator's permission to reuse their video is a separate line in the agreement. Every underline needs the creator's usage rights, and one off TikTok also needs a sound licensed there.

We'd settle it earlier than the terms require, with the brief and the offer, before the creator picks a sound. That's the point where the answer is one line. If it's caught on a draft, it's a revision.

For the light: the launch-week repost is on TikTok, so the library line covers it, as long as the track the creator picks is listed for that placement. The Instagram cut in November is off TikTok. Nobody on your side has a sound licensed for Instagram and the offer goes out this week, so the team takes the Instagram cut out of the plan for this video. The brief keeps its library line, and the offer no longer asks for usage rights on Instagram.

Frequently asked questions

The creator posts from a personal account. Does that change the line?

Not by the terms. TikTok's library terms define a commercial use by what the video does — advertising, endorsing or sponsoring a product — not by an account setting, and they note that the library is also open to individual users. So the line in your brief stays the same.

Can a sound leave the library after the video is up?

The terms allow for it. If TikTok loses the rights to a sound, the terms let it take down videos that use the sound or mute their audio. Nothing in the brief controls that.

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