Music promoters pay to place songs in TikTok videos. The FTC says creators may not have to disclose these deals.

The Federal Trade Commission does not Play around when it comes to YouTubers disclosing paid advertising in their videos. As the creative industry matures and more brands pay creators to promote their products, the FTC has taken a closer look and clarified its guidelines several times to warn creators about proper disclosure. These guidelines are strict and require creators to disclose more than just receiving cash payments in exchange for product endorsements: they must disclose any kind the financial relationship with brands, which could lead them to post more positive posts.

But these guidelines apparently don’t apply to song promotion.

And over there TikTokthat could be a problem.

billboard recently delved deep into the world of “sound campaigns,” where musicians, record labels and/or promoters pay to have music tracks used in TikTok videos. It spoke to sources familiar with the matter, including a major label marketer who, based on his experience, believes that “75% of popular songs on TikTok started with a creator marketing campaign.”

That’s okay. If anything, it further highlights the power of creators.

What’s wrong is that a large portion of these videos may not be disclosed as advertising because (as another source said billboard) Musicians/labels/promoters often don’t ask the creators they pay to create specific content, so there is no direct mention of the artist or their song; With these videos, the creators simply post the type of content they would normally post, just with the song in the background.

Isn’t this against FTC rules?

Well, said an FTC representative billboard“If songs are played in the background of videos, there are no objective statements about the songs. The creator of the video may implicitly communicate that they like the song, but viewers can judge the song for themselves when they play it in the video. For these reasons, a video may not be required to disclose that the content creator received compensation for the use of a particular song in the background of the video.”

So… the answer seems to be no. At least for now, the FTC doesn’t specifically require creators to disclose when they were paid to include a song in their videos. (However, the representative added that the FTC would “evaluate each case individually.”)

What does this mean for musicians – and creators? billboard found that the scope of music advertising on TikTok has changed in recent years. In 2020, labels paid creators the same Charlie D’Amelio Tens of thousands of dollars to perform choreographed dances to new songs by artists like… Jennifer Lopezin hopes of sparking the app’s next trend. A creator manager told it billboard They knew of a YouTuber who had been paid $50,000 to play a song in the background of his video.

Now things are a little different. Top creators can still get around $10,000 per video, but most music promoters don’t waste their entire budget trying to get a top creator; Instead, they “spread their budgets across many videos from smaller YouTubers to create the illusion of a less noticeable groundswell of support.” billboard Reports. It’s called micro-influencer (

This means that indie musicians and labels hoping to have their songs go viral organically find themselves competing with sound campaigns backed by hundreds or thousands of marketing dollars – perhaps without even being aware of the competition. You’re at a disadvantage, and that doesn’t seem to be an easy fix.

However, for YouTubers, collaborating with musicians could be another way to monetize. Here’s our advice if you go down this route: Despite the FTC’s current uncertain position on labeling song promotions as advertising, you should include a disclosure there. It might come in handy later.