Inside the secret TikTok library that turns viral songs into brand soundtracks

If you’re a sports fan on Tik Tok, you’ve almost certainly heard the song “Orla” by the British DJ and producer Nimino. Since its release in early March, the song has soundtracked nearly 150,000 videos on the platform. For Nimino, that doesn’t just mean more exposure for his music. It means money. A lot of the sports-world accounts that have used his track are businesses—Atlético de Madrid, the “Men in Blazers” podcast, Major League Baseball, the LPGA, and the Philadelphia Eagles—that accessed the song via TikTok’s growing Commercial Music Library (CML), which ensures artists are paid when their music is used commercially. @atleticodemadrid Feliz cumple, Moliii! 🥰🎂 Te queremos mucho ❤️🤍 #atleticodemadrid #molina #argentina #cumpleaños #birthday ♬ Orla – nimino The library offers the platform’s roughly 7 million business users access to 1.5 million tracks—not just generic royalty-free ones, but songs by label-signed artists, like Nimino. The kind of music, in other words, that allows business to capitalize on TikTok trends and even start one themselves. Whether they’re making an organic post or creating an ad, business accounts have to play by a different set of rules on TikTok. Unlike regular users, they can’t use music from the platform’s general music library without securing commercial rights, a costly and time-consuming effort that requires sign-off from both the track’s label (for the recording) and publisher (for the songwriting). “A lot of the brands on TikTok are actually small-to-medium businesses that don’t necessarily even know about music rights,” says Tracy Gardner, TikTok’s global head of music business development. “Even if they did and they went knocking on the door of the major rights-holders, they wouldn’t be given the time of day.” TikTok’s commercial library, like those of other video sites, was initially created with a focus on production music, or songs produced by companies th