frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

Open in hackernews

Ask HN: How do some platforms legally play copyrighted music?

3•absoluteunit1•4h ago
Hello,

I was curious recently - we started advertising on TikTok. I've never used TikTok before and was surprised that they have copyrighted music on their platform.

I'm assuming they probably have some special agreement with media companies - but it got me thinking; is it possible to (legally) play short snippets of famous copyrighted music on websites?

Is there any way that smaller websites can play short snippets (10-20 seconds) of copyrighted famous songs on their website?

Comments

dtagames•3h ago
I don't know the exact limit but a tiny sample is allowed as part of another presentation. The YouTuber Techmoan has mentioned and respects these limits and plays audio during his equipment tests.

Playing full songs without a license can get your content (or even your domain or hosting) yanked over a DMCA violation report. Large infractions can result in lawsuits from media rights holders.

absoluteunit1•3h ago
Yeah, I would definitely want to avoid this.

I just want to play short snippets of famous songs on the site. 10-20 seconds typically.

> The YouTuber Techmoan has mentioned and respects these limits and plays audio during his equipment tests.

I'll have a look

JohnFen•3h ago
In the US, there is no exception to copyright based on the length of the clip used. In practice, though, copyright holders often ignore infringing uses if they are short and not commercial in nature -- but they don't have to, and they can change their minds at any point in the future.

If you're talking about using clips in an advertisement, though, copyright holders are much less likely to look the other way.

> Is there any way that smaller websites can play short snippets (10-20 seconds) of copyrighted famous songs on their website?

Yes. The legal way to do this is to buy a license. Usually, BMI or ASCAP are the entities that deal with this. You should contact them for terms. You might also want to consult a copyright attorney for authoritative advice rather than listen to an internet random like myself.

absoluteunit1•2h ago
I see - thanks for mentioning BMI and ASCAP; haven't heard of them before.

> You might also want to consult a copyright attorney for authoritative advice rather than listen to an internet random like myself.

Yes - sent out a few initial emails to some lawyers that offer a free consultation; let's see if they respond.

Thank you!

incomingpain•3h ago
Fair use never applies to commercial.

In Canada you can pay SOCAN to get a general license for copyrighted content. It's not all content, but they have pretty good coverage.

Much easier to just find public domain stuff for an ad.

absoluteunit1•2h ago
I won't be running ads - this is a feature for a very niche audience lol

Ask HN: Once AI replaces us, can we do Vibe Plumbing?

1•ciwolex•54s ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Any tools to automatically diagram cloud infra?

1•telecomsteve•1m ago•0 comments

Express-Voice: instant and accented identity voice cloning model

https://synthesiaresearch.github.io/express-voice/
1•alexvoica•2m ago•0 comments

McDonald's AI Hiring Bot Exposed Millions of Applicants' Data to Hackers

https://www.wired.com/story/mcdonalds-ai-hiring-chat-bot-paradoxai/
1•impish9208•2m ago•0 comments

YouTube Can't Put Pandora's AI Slop Back in the Box

https://gizmodo.com/youtube-cant-put-pandoras-ai-slop-back-in-the-box-2000626819
2•rntn•4m ago•0 comments

Tell HN: HN is becoming too political

3•redm•6m ago•4 comments

Are LLMs starting to become sentient?

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/are-llms-starting-to-become-a-sentient
1•almost-exactly•7m ago•0 comments

Hare by Example

https://harebyexample.org
2•todsacerdoti•9m ago•0 comments

When politicians gain power, their language becomes garbled

https://phys.org/news/2025-06-politicians-gain-power-language-garbled.html
2•PaulHoule•11m ago•0 comments

Belitsoft sees a rise in full-stack developer hiring in 2025 (UK, USA, Canada)

https://www.londondaily.news/belitsoft-sees-a-rise-in-full-stack-developer-hiring-in-2025-uk-usa-canada/
1•Aninay•13m ago•0 comments

Apple Now Wants to Buy Streaming Rights for Formula 1 Racing

https://www.macrumors.com/2025/07/09/apple-wants-to-buy-f1-streaming-rights/
1•mgh2•13m ago•0 comments

I got rid of all my Neovim plugins

https://yobibyte.github.io/vim.html
1•sharjeelsayed•14m ago•0 comments

Show HN: LLviM – A conversational coding plugin for Vim and Local LLMs

https://github.com/gkchestertron/LLviM
1•trs83•15m ago•0 comments

Section-174 is reversed: all US-based R&D expenses are now deductible

https://www.afternoon.co/blog/section-174-is-reversed
3•romanzubenko•16m ago•0 comments

Save Yourself Some Dough on Apple Kit and Make Me Rich on Amazon Prime Day

https://daringfireball.net/2025/07/make_me_rich_on_amazon_prime_day
1•Bogdanp•16m ago•1 comments

Nvidia becomes first company to be worth $4T

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/nvidia-becomes-first-company-worth-4-trillion-what-to-know-rcna217721
1•mgh2•17m ago•0 comments

Would You Like an IDOR With That? Leaking 64m McDonald's Job Applications

https://ian.sh/mcdonalds
1•samwcurry•19m ago•0 comments

Denmark's ambitious plan to boost plant-based foods

https://channels.ft.com/en/rethink/denmarks-ambitious-plan-to-boost-plant-based-foods/
1•miles•20m ago•0 comments

Mellow Drama: Turning Browsers into Request Brokers

https://secureannex.com/blog/mellow-drama/
1•wut42•21m ago•0 comments

Helix Parallelism: Sharding Strategies for Multi-Million-Token LLM Decoding

https://research.nvidia.com/publication/2025-07_helix-parallelism-rethinking-sharding-strategies-interactive-multi-million
2•h6d_100c•23m ago•0 comments

Study on the dynamics of an origami space plane during Earth atmospheric entry

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576525004047
2•gnabgib•23m ago•0 comments

Chalk – Metadata Code Tracking Made Easy

https://github.com/crashappsec/chalk
1•TheWiggles•27m ago•0 comments

We've got a surprise Pixel Drop for you (July 2025)

https://blog.google/products/pixel/pixel-drop-july-2025/
1•raybb•28m ago•1 comments

Apple says COO Jeff Williams will retire from company later this year

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/08/apple-says-coo-jeff-williams-handing-over-role-to-sabih-khan-this-month.html
2•amrrs•30m ago•0 comments

Biomni: A General-Purpose Biomedical AI Agent

https://github.com/snap-stanford/Biomni
11•GavCo•30m ago•2 comments

DRAM prices are about to skyrocket – DDR4 and GDDR6 prices could increase by 45%

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dram/dram-prices-are-about-to-skyrocket-ddr4-and-gddr6-among-formats-that-could-increase-in-price-by-up-to-45-percent
2•aieconosab•32m ago•0 comments

Driving Content Delivery Efficiency Through Classifying Cache Misses

https://netflixtechblog.com/driving-content-delivery-efficiency-through-classifying-cache-misses-ffcf08026b6c
2•GavCo•33m ago•0 comments

We asked 9 AI and agent builders about their top problems

https://unionailoop.substack.com/p/we-asked-9-ai-and-agent-builders
1•aitacobell•33m ago•0 comments

Let Kids Be Loud

https://www.afterbabel.com/p/let-kids-be-loud
4•trevin•34m ago•0 comments

From MIT, an instruction manual for turning research into startups

https://news.mit.edu/2025/from-mit-instruction-manual-for-turning-research-into-startups-0624
3•gnabgib•36m ago•1 comments