Licensing & royalties
Music for Commercial Use
Music for commercial use is music used in any context that promotes or supports a business: advertising, brand content, product videos, client work, retail playback, trade shows and paid social. Almost every free or personal-use source excludes it, so commercial use is the dividing line that determines which music you may legally touch.
In practice
The test is not whether you earn money directly from the video, but whether the use serves a commercial purpose. A company explainer with no advertising on it is still commercial use. What you need in practice is a licence that names commercial and advertising use explicitly, states territory and term, permits editing, and comes from a party who can indemnify you. And you need to keep the document: when a claim arrives eighteen months later, the person who bought the licence has often left the company.
How SoniBuyout® handles it
A SoniBuyout track is bought outright for exactly this scenario: unlimited commercial use in every medium and market, no renewal, and a named certificate of ownership that answers the question "prove you can use this" without needing to find an old invoice.
Real questions
Is "royalty-free" music safe for commercial use?
Only if the licence says so. Royalty-free refers to how it is priced, not to what it allows — many royalty-free licences exclude advertising, broadcast or client work.
Does commercial use include internal company videos?
Generally yes. Business use is commercial even when the video is never sold or advertised, and most personal-use licences exclude it.
Related terms
Own the track instead of renting it
Sonify Music sells exclusive buyouts of catalogue tracks: one payment, full ownership, the track removed from sale and a named certificate of ownership.