PTN INSIDER REPORT 007 / TikTok Turns Licensing Into Plumbing / September 5, 2025
- 📍 1. CONTEXT / INDUSTRY SHIFT TikTok just folded Chordal’s InstantClear licensing tech into its Commercial Music Library (CML). On the surface, that’s another “integration headline.” But the weight is deeper: this marks a decisive turn from licensing as negotiation to licensing as infrastructure. TikTok’s CML already housed around 1 million pre-cleared tracks. With InstantClear, even songs with multiple co-writers and publishers can now be auto-cleared, fractionally split, and paid out in real time. No endless back-and-forth, no weeks of waiting. Why it matters: Music licensing is becoming invisible to the end-user. For brands, this means one-click access to soundtrack ads. For creators, it means your catalog either fits into the pipe -or gets left behind entirely. And the context is bigger: TikTok has been under fire for years (remember Sony yanking its catalog in 2022, the spats over unpaid royalties, lawsuits circling AI training data). CML was born from that pressure-to give advertisers a safe sandbox. Now it’s evolving into a full-scale licensing utility. Parallels abound. YouTube’s Content ID system once felt like a policing tool. Two decades later, it is infrastructure for billions in payouts. TikTok’s CML + InstantClear could become the Content ID of micro-sync. - 📂 2. CASE FOCUS / BREAKDOWN • TikTok × Chordal integration (MBW, Shore Fire, DMW) - Chordal’s InstantClear tech drops inside TikTok’s CML. Songs with fractional ownership can be cleared in seconds, and automated payout flows to rights-holders. • Chordal API expansion (Music Ally) - Chordal opened InstantClear to other apps beyond TikTok, signaling this isn’t a one-off. The goal: any platform that needs music licensing can plug into pre-cleared rights. • TikTok ad market scale - Global ad spend on TikTok crossed $15B in 2024 (Insider Intelligence), much of it reliant on music in branded campaigns. Now, the majority of that ad spend can flow through a single pre-cleared music pipe.