The ads that need an Originality Clearance are the ones that carry significant copyright risk: successful campaigns with exponential risk to the client, and any that contain original music somebody wrote while listening to a reference track.
Originality clearance is distinct from rights clearance. Confusingly, both go by the name clearance. One is whether you have the rights to music you licensed from whoever owns it. The other is whether the music you’re about to run is too close to something else. Sometimes, one turns into the other!
An originality clearance is a written, signed opinion from a qualified forensic musicologist on whether a work is too close to an existing work to release safely.
| What the music is | Regional, organic, or internal | National, paid | Broadcast, global, or high-spend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licensed existing master Sync and master cleared with the rights holders | Nothing needed | Nothing needed | Nothing needed |
| Cover You re-recorded someone else’s song, licensed | Nothing needed | Nothing needed | Nothing needed |
| Production or library track | The library’s warranty usually covers you | The library’s warranty usually covers you | Ask the library what it actually screened. Most screen nothing musical |
| Sample You licensed a piece of an existing recording | The sample is licensed. The rest of the track is the other question | Screen the material around the sample | Screen the material around the sample |
| Interpolation or replay You re-played someone else’s melody | Confirm the license covers what your player actually played | Confirm the license, then screen what’s around it | Full review |
| Commissioned original, no reference given | Usually fine. Ask the composer in writing what they were listening to | Screen it | Full review |
| Commissioned original written to a temp or reference track | Screen it | Full review | Full review |
| AI-generated or AI-assisted | Screen it | Full review | Full review |
When it’s worth doing
The rule is the reference track. If the brief named a song, or the composer was handed a temp, the finished work should be cleared before air. That is the fact pattern behind most soundalike claims in advertising, and it is also the most ordinary way original music gets written for a campaign. Exposure sets the stakes rather than the question: the same track is a different problem on a national buy than on an organic post.
What the opinion contains
An originality clearance is an element-by-element comparison of melody, harmony, rhythm and structure against the works most likely to be raised, an assessment of what in those works is actually protectable, and a signed statement of where the risk sits. That signed opinion is what a contract, an insurer, or a network is asking for when it asks for a clearance. Automated similarity tools flag. They do not opine, and they do not sign.
If it comes back close
A clearance run before release returns specifics while the spot is still editable: which elements carry the risk, how an opposing expert would frame them, and what it would take to move the work out of range. Sometimes that is a compositional change. Sometimes it is a license that costs less than the argument it prevents. The dated opinion also sits in the file as evidence of diligence if a claim is later pleaded as willful.
Who pays, and when in the schedule
Agencies usually commission the clearance and bill it through, and some brands require it and name it in the production agreement. The work belongs after the composer delivers and before the spot locks. A composer’s indemnity is capped in practice by what the composer can pay, which is why the requirement tends to come from the party carrying the exposure. A preliminary read runs twenty-four to seventy-two hours, faster against a lock date.
Send the track
I’m Brian McBrearty. I do the analysis and I sign the opinion. Send the track, the reference it was written to, and your air date. The scoping call is free and carries no obligation, and if you don’t need an opinion I’ll tell you that on the call. I’m not a lawyer, I’m a musicologist. Your attorney handles legal strategy. I answer how close the music is, in writing, over my signature.
Start here: Music Copyright Clearance Analysis. For campaign work specifically, see Music Copyright Clearance for Advertising. If it’s urgent, call (212) 217-9512.