The Rise of Influencer Culture Is Creating Big Opportunities for Music Licensing

According to Morning Consult, 57% of people born roughly between 1995 to 2010 aspire to become influencers and earn a living publishing their lives — or a fictional semblance of their real lives — on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. That means there has never been a greater need for simple solutions to license music.

Making synch licensing simple is key to capturing the potential in today’s creator economy, says Wendy Connell, vp of marketing at music synch startup Soundstripe. “How can we guide people through this complicated process and make it as easy as possible, and make sure that they know that they’re covered, it’s legal, and take care of all the complication for them?” she says.

Soundstripe has business customers, too, and its traditional synch (film, TV and movies) rose 87% in 2024. But personal users — influencers, hobbyists, students, etc. — account for 53% of its customers. With evidence growing that content creation is big business, there’s a huge opportunity for companies like Soundstripe that provide them with services — and the need for affordable music licensing could help grow a U.S. synch revenue market that was worth $411 million in 2023 (a number that includes only label revenue tracked by the RIAA) and probably more in 2024.

The world is awash in content creators — the term for professional, semi-professional and amateur photographers and video makers who flood digital platforms with everything from cooking tips to travel videos to Amazon product recommendations. But making short videos for a living isn’t just an aspiration of the younger generations for whom Mr. Beast is the peak of celebrity and Kim Kardashian is the blueprint for turning fame into wealth. Morning Consult also found that 41% of all adults surveyed would choose the career: Across all age groups, millions of creators already operate at the sub-career level. And a November 2023 report by the Keller Advisory Group found there were 27 million paid creators in the U.S. aged 16 to 54. For a small group of them, being an influencer provides a six-figure annual income, but for most of the 27 million “micro-influencers,” annual income is less than $10,000. Regardless of how much they make, though, influencers are churning out content — much of it requiring music.

This supply of content exists because there is a massive, eager audience for creators’ videos and photos. Young consumers are spending their time on smartphones, not TVs: 60% of American teens spend four or more hours each day on social media on average, and nearly 30% are on social platforms for more than six hours per day. Older age groups also spend time on social media — the 55-64 age group logs two hours per day on average, according to eMarketer — but younger people skew toward short-form videos on TikTok while older consumers bank most of their social time on Facebook.

In the past, TV shows and movies provided a constant source for synch royalties for the use of a sound recording and its underlying musical work. Today, those traditional synch opportunities still exist, but influencers and other content creators are eroding legacy media’s viewing time. In July, YouTube accounted for more than 10% of TV viewing, according to Nielsen, becoming the first streaming platform to surpass the 10% threshold. That was more than Netflix, a TV juggernaut that commanded an 8.4% share, and Amazon Prime, a distant third amongst streaming platforms at 3.4%. All streaming platforms accounted for 41.4% of TV viewing, well ahead of cable (26.7%) and broadcast (20.3%).

But influencers need easy-to-use, affordable licensing options to stay out of legal trouble. Last year, companies such as Marriott, Bang Energy and OFRA Cosmetics were sued by music rights holders for using unlicensed music in influencer marketing. (Sony Music and Marriott ended their lawsuit while Bang Energy lost separate court cases against Sony and UMG in 2022.) While TikTok’s licensing deals allow users to incorporate music into their videos, they stop short of allowing corporations and the influencers they — or third-party firms — hire to use music for commercial purposes. Outside of influencer marketing, there are numerous other instances of companies using music without permission when simple, legal and affordable licensing options exist.

Aside from Soundstripe, platforms such as Epidemic Sound, PremiumBeat, Artlist and, most recently, The Rights provide royalty-free music, typically through a subscription model, that provide a wide range of mostly anonymous production music, though professional musicians and songwriters working under their stage names are largely absent from these platforms. While Soundstripe currently has in-house musicians to build its catalog, Connell says the company is working on bringing in record labels’ catalogs to offer to their customers. That would benefit artists and songwriters whose music isn’t available at Soundstripe and similar platforms and who would otherwise miss out on the rise of influencer culture — and the financial benefits that can come from tapping into it.