MrBeast wanted to use music from major artists in his videos. Fitness channels needed proper workout music. Gaming creators required tracks that resonated with their audiences. 

For years, these creators faced an impossible choice: use generic stock music that viewers skip past, risk copyright claims that strip monetization, or avoid music altogether.

Paul Sampson, founder and CEO of Lickd, saw this tension costing creators both creatively and financially. 

“Ninety percent of all views on YouTube come from the top 3% of channels, and the top 8% earn money. The people that have the audience, the influence, the means, and the will to be able to pay to use music legally are actively avoiding you,” Paul says, recalling what he told music industry executives on one occasion.

Founded in 2016, Lickd is a subscription-based platform that licenses mainstream music directly to content creators while protecting their monetization through proprietary technology. 

The company negotiates directly with major labels and publishers, secures pre-cleared rights, and integrates with YouTube’s Content ID system to prevent copyright claims against paying customers.

With 1.5 million tracks from artists like Coldplay, Dua Lipa, and Bruno Mars, Lickd has created the technical and legal infrastructure that allows monetizing creators to use the songs their audiences recognize—something that was technically impossible just three years ago.

The Democratization Gap in Content Creation

While examining the creator economy eight years ago, Paul identified a critical disconnect. 

“All the means of production from the big four entities (film, trailers, TV programming, and advertising) had been democratized to the living room,” he explains. “You used to need an editor and an edit suite. That was two grand a day right there. You used to need a cameraman and an expensive camera. That’s another grand or grand and a half a day.”

Digital technology has eliminated these barriers. “Every laptop comes with editing software. The camera, the home camera, was good enough to shoot YouTube on. Now the phone is good enough to do it on,” notes Paul.

Yet music licensing—Paul’s area of expertise for over 20 years working at companies like CueSongs, Music Dealers, and Extreme Music—remained stuck in an outdated, manual process designed for traditional media companies with legal teams and long production timelines.

“What I realized is that the only resource of the big production companies that hadn’t democratized yet was what I was doing,” Paul explains. 

This insight led him to envision “something like Spotify but for content creators. So not for music streaming, for music licensing.”

The Technical Bridge: How Vouch Solves the Content ID Problem

The core innovation behind Lickd isn’t just securing rights—it’s solving the technical challenge of YouTube’s Content ID system, which automatically flags copyrighted music regardless of whether a creator has obtained permission.

Lickd’s proprietary software, Vouch, addresses this fundamental problem. “Vouch informs Content ID every time it recognizes a use of a song and whether or not it’s been legally licensed or it’s an infringement,” explains Paul. “Without Vouch, that creator, even though they licensed it from us, would still get a copyright claim and lose all their money.”

This technical integration required music rights holders to install Lickd’s software in their YouTube Content Management Systems—no small feat for a startup approaching an industry known for technological conservatism.

From Resistance to Revenue

“When it comes to adopting innovation, the music industry is only slightly ahead of the Amish,” Paul states, highlighting this resistance as Lickd’s greatest challenge.

Despite having working technology, securing rights agreements took years. “The first major label signing with us took five years,” Paul reveals. “The first major publishers to sign a blanket deal with us took six and a half years.”

The music industry’s primary concern was revenue cannibalization. “Hang on a minute, we’re claiming everything on YouTube at the moment,” Paul recalls what they told him. “For this to make sense for your customer, the price they would pay has to be less than what they lose through a copyright claim. So actually, we’re going to earn less money through you.”

Paul countered with data analysis of 60 million channel IDs, proving that no label had ever claimed more than 4% of monetizing channels. The creators with substantial followings were actively avoiding using mainstream music to protect their revenue streams—representing an untapped goldmine.

Gradually, different departments within labels began to see the potential. “The marketing team is nice to you because they want influencers to use their music,” Paul explains.

Music Rediscovery Drives Multiple Revenue Streams

One pivotal moment came when a major soccer content creator licensed John Newman’s “Love Me Again” through Lickd. The song, originally released years earlier, was particularly significant to football gaming fans who recognized it from FIFA 14’s menu music.

“Maybe I’m exaggerating to say 1 in 4 of the comments were like, ‘That use of that song was amazing. How did he use mainstream music? Oh my God, that song gives me FIFA 14 vibes,’” Paul recalls.

When the label examined streaming data, they discovered a significant spike in Spotify plays coinciding with the video’s release. 

“Everyone that commented on that video streamed it on Spotify,” says Paul. “This kid paid to use the song. The song is three years old. We’re getting some of the license fees from Lickd, and we’re earning more money on Spotify from the song than we have done over the last three years.”

The creator gained engagement, Lickd earned its fee, and rights holders received both licensing revenue and increased streaming royalties.

Measurable Performance Benefits for Creators

Lickd’s data shows that using mainstream music significantly enhances content performance across key metrics:

• 35% more watch time
• 2x views
• 76% more likes

These improvements directly impact how YouTube’s algorithm promotes content, creating compounding growth. Fitness creators have been particularly quick to recognize this value.

“Every single one of them started at one price point with us and now pays four or five times that price point,” Paul notes. “They’re paying five times more for a song now than six months ago or a year ago. Why are they staying? Oh, it’s because they directly attribute some of the growth of their channel to the use of the music.”

Gaming creators show even stronger performance improvements due to the usage of mainstream music. 

“We see over-indexing in performance in the gaming sector on YouTube when it comes to the impact of great music, more than any other sector, including fitness,” Paul reports. “We will be focusing on gaming creators more and more because we’ve seen that it can double almost every metric for them, and they use a lot of music.”

How Lickd Works: Pricing and User Experience

Lickd operates on a tiered subscription model based on channel size and music needs. 

For small channels wanting unlimited stock music plus one mainstream song monthly, pricing starts around £15-16 ($20). Four mainstream songs with unlimited stock music costs approximately £25 for small channels.

As channels grow, so does pricing. “The biggest creators in the world pay 10 to 100 times more to use the same song that a small creator would,” Paul explains. “The pricing varies based on the size of your audience and, therefore, your earnings.”

From each subscription, Lickd takes approximately 30%, with 70% paid to rights holders who then compensate artists and writers.

The user experience is deliberately straightforward: creators sign up, pay their monthly fee, receive credits, and then select songs. “You add it to your basket, you check out like you’re on Amazon or eBay,” explains Paul. A contract appears in their account, and from that point, Vouch protects them from copyright claims on YouTube.

Brands and Gaming Platforms

Recognizing that brands face even greater music licensing challenges, Lickd recently launched a platform specifically for brand content.

“Brands have an equally hard time licensing music for TikTok or Instagram,” Paul explains. “They’re not allowed to use the library on those platforms like you and I are. And when they try and license music, it takes them five, six weeks, and they’re putting out two pieces of content a day.”

The brand platform, currently in closed beta with companies like Boohoo and L’Oréal’s Redken already using it, has reduced approval times from 4-5 weeks to 48-72 hours.

Lickd also has an established relationship with Epic Games, providing a bespoke version of Vouch to protect Fortnite players sharing gameplay footage that includes music.

Limitations and Ongoing Challenges

Despite its progress, Lickd still faces challenges. Most notably, not all major music companies have signed on. “We have Universal on both sides. We have Warner on both sides. We have BMG on both sides. I don’t have Sony yet,” Paul acknowledges.

This means popular artists like Beyoncé aren’t yet available on the platform. “I can’t tell you how many emails we get saying, ‘I love what you’re doing. Have you thought about getting Beyoncé?'” Paul says.

Lickd uses these search requests as leverage in negotiations, showing labels concrete evidence of demand for their artists. 

“Every time we are able to go to Sony and say, ‘Look how many searches we had for your artists. Look at the average license fee and average spend per customer. Can you afford to ignore those numbers? We hope to be able to bring them on board in the not-too-distant future.”

From Business to Movement

Lickd aims to more than double its revenue this year with a target of 150% year-on-year growth. The company is expanding beyond individual creators to serve brands while maintaining its core mission.

Paul increasingly sees Lickd as more than just a business venture. “I don’t see it as a private endeavor. I see it as a movement, as a mission,” he insists. “If we’re not here in three years, that’s it. Back to stock music. That’s the end of mainstream music in online content or in YouTube content forever.”

For the creator economy, Lickd represents a fundamental expansion of what’s possible in content production. The sounds that define cultural moments can now legally enhance creator content as well.

As Paul puts it: “If you care about artists and songwriters and culture, then you have to be behind Lickd over everyone else in the game. We are making that possible.”