---
title: Sync licence: the two clearances every placement needs
publisher: RapCanon
canonical: https://rapcanon.com/glossary/sync-licence/
license: CC-BY-4.0
retrieved: 2026-08-12
---

> A sync licence is permission to synchronise a piece of music with visual media such as a film, television programme, advertisement or game.

Glossary · Economics

 
# Sync licence

 
also filed under: synchronisation licence, sync, sync placement

 
 

 
 A sync licence is permission to synchronise a piece of music with visual media such as a film, television programme, advertisement or game. 

 
## The mechanism

 
Sync requires clearance on BOTH copyrights: the composition, cleared with the publisher and writers, and the recording, cleared with whoever owns the master. There is no statutory rate, so every fee is negotiated on the project's budget, the placement's prominence, the term, and the territory. If either side refuses, there is no placement.

 
## A worked example

 A supervisor wants an independent record for a streaming series. The master is owned by the artist, but the beat was bought on an exclusive licence under which the producer retained the publishing, so the producer must also sign before the placement can clear. 

 Two copyrights, two signatures. Either one can kill the placement. 

 
## What it is confused with

 - Mechanical royalty A mechanical is a statutory rate paid for reproducing a composition. Sync has no statutory rate at all and is freely negotiated, which is why comparable placements can differ by a factor of fifty.
- Master use licence The master use licence is the recording half of a sync clearance. People often say 'sync' to mean the whole clearance, but it is two agreements and either can block the deal.
 

 
## Why it matters

 
It is one of the few income lines in music where a single decision pays more than years of streaming, and it dies most often not on price but on an unclearable split nobody checked before the deadline.

 
Sources: US Copyright Office
 This entry is part of an open dataset published under CC-BY 4.0. Reuse it, including commercially, with attribution.
 Related: Recoupment · Black box royalties · 360 deal

---

## How to cite this page

**APA**
RapCanon. (2026). Sync licence: the two clearances every placement needs. Retrieved from https://rapcanon.com/glossary/sync-licence/

**BibTeX**
```bibtex
@misc{rapcanon-glossary-sync-licence,
  title  = {Sync licence: the two clearances every placement needs},
  author = {{RapCanon}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://rapcanon.com/glossary/sync-licence/},
  note   = {Accessed: 2026-08-12}
}
```

**Wikipedia**
```
{{cite web |title=Sync licence: the two clearances every placement needs |url=https://rapcanon.com/glossary/sync-licence/ |publisher=RapCanon |access-date=2026-08-12}}
```

Licensed CC-BY 4.0. Reuse it, including commercially, with attribution and a link back.
Canonical HTML: https://rapcanon.com/glossary/sync-licence/