As licensing shifts toward high-velocity use cases (UGC platforms, programmatic ads, creator tools), the gap between what modern licensees need and what traditional workflows can deliver has only widened.
Chordal, the Rights Network for Popular Music
Now free for independent labels and publishers to join.
For independent labels, the songs most likely to land syncs are often the ones hardest to clear. Co-writes, fractional splits, multi-publisher deals. And as licensing shifts toward high-velocity, high-volume use cases (UGC platforms, programmatic advertising, creator tools), the gap between what modern licensees need and what traditional sync workflows can deliver has only widened.
That gap has a cost. The last several years have seen a wave of high-stakes infringement litigation against social platforms and digital advertisers, with rights holders forced into court because there was no scalable, compliant pathway to license music for the way modern content actually gets made. The licensees aren't trying to avoid paying. They've had no realistic way to pay, at the volume and velocity their use cases demand. Chordal exists to be that pathway.
Chordal is the rights network for popular music. Not a collection society, not a sub-licensor, and critically, not a pre-cleared marketplace. Chordal does not aggregate your catalog into a pre-priced storefront or act as a licensing counterparty. What Chordal provides is the transactional infrastructure underneath: the rails that let rights holders do direct licensing at modern content speed.
Chordal's flagship product InstantClear™, lets rights holders pre-clear fractional master and publishing shares for specific buyers and applications, then automates reporting and payout distributions to all parties when those songs get used.
The result: songs that historically couldn't compete for fast-moving opportunities (anything fractionally owned, anything with multiple writers, anything that needed five signatures) can now move at the speed of modern content. InstantClear has processed over 200,000 clearances in its first 9 months post-launch, and independent labels are already generating new 6-figure passive revenues.
Proof of concept: A TikTok partnership, eight months in
Chordal's multi-year partnership with TikTok's global Commercial Music Library is the clearest public look at what the infrastructure can do at scale. Eight months in, the numbers speak for themselves:
-18% of songs delivered through Chordal generated micro-sync activity in the CML, 7x the industry-standard traditional sync rate
-5.3 billion total views and 1.6 million organic creates on Chordal-cleared CML music
-200x better performance on promoted tracks vs. comparable non-promoted songs
Thousands of songs cleared with roughly one hour of total human effort across catalogs
Real outcomes for catalogs:
"The TikTok activity has been incredible, generating revenue and creating artist and song awareness. The opt-in is so easy, it's a great opportunity for emerging artists in my catalog."
Josh Kessler, Heavy Duty Music (Louis La Roche: 17M views in 4 weeks, now approaching 470M)
"The process was super easy… everything from contract review to submission was about as smooth as you could want it to be. We've seen uses per day increase across songs accepted into the CML."
Lucas James, Seeking Blue (STAR SEED: 0 to 10.9M views in 4 weeks)
No cost to join
Chordal is now free for labels and publishers to join. No subscription, and catalog already connected to you through your existing rights partners flows in at no cost. You opt in and start earning on placements as they happen, across TikTok's CML, and a growing roster of enterprise buyer partnerships launching now.
For independent labels especially, where every sync matters and admin overhead eats real margin, this is worth a serious look.
Learn more and opt in at chordal.com.
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