A platform that wants licensed music inside its product partners with a music library in one of three ways. An API integration puts the library's catalog and clearance inside your own interface. A reseller agreement lets you sell the library's plans to your users under the library's brand. A white-label arrangement puts the library's catalog under your brand, with the library out of sight. Affiliate and referral programs get called partnerships too, and they're none of these. What separates the three is who holds the brand, who holds the customer, and who carries the licensing obligation.
The question comes up because the streaming APIs every developer knows don't allow commercial use or syncing recordings with video, which are the two things a creator platform needs. So a platform whose users publish content has to work with a library that licenses for that, and then decide how. This guide compares the three models in one table, explains each in practice, shows where the license risk sits, and closes with five questions that settle which one fits.
The API you were going to use won't license this
Your users need licensed music inside your product. The Soundstripe API puts 116,000 tracks there.
Why the consumer streaming APIs are not a licensing path
Consumer streaming services publish developer APIs for playback and metadata, and their terms prohibit the two uses a creator platform depends on: commercial use and synchronizing recordings with video. Spotify's Developer Policy bars both. Apple's App Review Guidelines say MusicKit is not a replacement for the licenses a deeper integration needs. A platform whose users publish videos needs a library that licenses for that use.
Product teams keep rediscovering the specifics late. The Spotify Developer Policy (effective 15 May 2025) lists "do not synchronize any sound recordings with any visual media" among its prohibited applications, and its commercial-use section rules out selling access to a streaming app, monetizing inside one, or selling ads on one. Apple's App Review Guidelines, section 4.5.2 (updated June 8, 2026) say an app may not require payment or indirectly monetize access to Apple Music, and that shareable audio or video means going to rights holders for sync permission. Those are the platforms' own terms; performance-rights law is a separate layer and outside this article. The partnership question is about music libraries, not streaming services.
The three models side by side
The affiliate column is included because people search for it under the same words. The obligation, billing, and support rows describe industry norms, not any one library's terms.
API integration: the library's catalog inside your product
An API integration puts a music library's catalog, search, previews, and downloads inside a platform's own interface, with the license attached to each track at the point of delivery. The platform's users never leave the product or open a separate account. The library carries the rights obligation to artists and publishers. The platform carries the user experience and the integration work.
This is where most creator platforms land, because it's the only model where music becomes a feature rather than a referral. Soundstripe describes it on its music API page for platforms as "Use our API": "Pull licensed, royalty free music directly into your product with clearance handled on our side." Shopee is the clearest public example: merchants pick a track and publish a video without leaving Shopee's own tools. Read how the Soundstripe API brought licensed music to Shopee for the detail, and if the mechanics are new, start with what a music API does for a business and its users.
Who it fits: platforms whose users create and publish inside the product. Video editors, e-commerce video tools, social schedulers, course builders.
Reseller: selling the library's plans to your users
In a reseller agreement, a platform sells a music library's plans, pricing, or incentives to its own users under the library's brand. The reseller earns a margin, a commission, or a discounted rate. The library keeps the product, the brand, and the licensing relationship with rights holders, and it typically keeps a direct line to the end user through the license itself.
Soundstripe's music API page names this path "Resell our music": "Offer exclusive Soundstripe plans, pricing, or incentives to your users," and "License the Soundstripe catalog for distribution inside your platform under a reseller agreement." The terms are a sales conversation, not a blog post.
What to expect in the paperwork, in general: territory, pricing floors or recommended prices, exclusivity, minimum volumes, permitted co-branding, and whether the provider keeps the right to sell direct into your market. That list comes from a June 2026 explainer on what a reseller agreement typically covers, and it holds for music as well as software. Read the direct-sale clause twice.
Who it fits: platforms with an audience that already buys creative tools, no engineering budget for an integration, and no need to own the music experience.
White label: your brand, their catalog and clearance
One thing first, because the phrase is a trap. In music, "white label" mostly means distribution: a company pushing releases to streaming platforms under its own name on someone else's delivery pipeline, the sense in what white-label means in music distribution. This article uses the partnership sense: a library's catalog and clearance under your name.
A white-label music arrangement puts a library's catalog and clearance under the platform's own brand, so end users see only the platform. The library stays invisible: your domain, your interface, your billing, your support. The rights obligation still sits with the library under the contract, but your brand is the one users hold responsible, which is why white-label terms need explicit rebranding rights and stricter confidentiality than a reseller deal.
Partial and full white label are different products. If the vendor's name leaks through support links or email headers, you've bought a rebranded reseller deal. The Reditus glossary on white-label SaaS and the partner ladder puts it plainly: white-labeling removes the vendor from view entirely, and DNS records, email headers, and status pages are where it leaks unless both sides configure them carefully.
Soundstripe's music API page doesn't list white label as a named path. The closest is the third path, "Build something new": "Have a unique idea or nuanced need? Let's collaborate. From bespoke user experiences to licensing structures, we're always open to inventive ways to work together." If your brand has to be the only one the user sees, that's the conversation to open.
Who it fits: platforms whose brand is the product, and who can staff first-line support for a feature someone else builds.
Affiliate and referral programs are not platform partnerships
An affiliate or referral program pays a commission when someone you refer buys a plan from the library. You hold a tracking link, not a contract that puts music inside your product or under your brand. It's a marketing relationship that suits creators, educators, and publishers with an audience, and it does nothing for a platform that needs music in its workflow.
This matters because the word "partner" covers both, and a platform buyer searching for a music reseller program mostly finds affiliate programs. Soundstripe has one; the Soundstripe partner program best practices post is written for the creators it serves. If you're a platform, it isn't your door.
The models do connect, though: partner programs often run as a ladder, affiliate first, then reseller, then white label when you want to own pricing and margin.
Who carries the licensing obligation in each model
In all three models the music library holds the licenses with artists and publishers and is the party that authorizes use. Rebranding a catalog does not move that obligation; only the contract does. What changes across models is who the end user blames when something goes wrong, who is indemnified, and who has to explain a claim.
The reason is in the statute. Under 17 U.S.C. § 106, the copyright owner holds the exclusive right "to do and to authorize" reproduction, distribution, and public performance. The library holding the licenses passes that authorization down. A platform that puts its logo on the catalog has acquired a promise from the library, not a right from the owners.
In an API integration, the library is exposed to rights holders and the platform to its users, so the agreement spells out who is indemnified and for what. In a reseller deal, a claim tends to land with the library first, since it keeps the user relationship through the license. In a white-label deal, the claim lands on your brand and you route it to the library under the contract, which is why the indemnification clause matters most here. If those terms are new, read business music licensing terms explained and what indemnification is before the first call.
How to pick: five questions
The model that fits follows from five answers: whose brand the user should see, who should hold the customer, how much license risk the platform can carry under its own name, whether it has engineers to spend on an integration, and how money should move between platform, library, and user.
- Whose brand should the user see? Yours only: white label. Yours with the library inside: API. The library's: reseller.
- Who should hold the customer? If you need the billing relationship and the support ticket, API or white label. If you're happy to hand the user over, reseller.
- How much license risk can you carry under your own name? The more invisible the library, the more your brand absorbs the first complaint.
- Do you have engineers to spend on this? API and white label need them. Reseller barely does.
- How should the money move? Bundled into your product, billed by you at a wholesale cost, or billed by the library with a margin back to you. Each maps to one model.
Once you know the model, the vendor conversation has its own list: 30 questions to ask every music licensing provider.
Where Soundstripe fits
Soundstripe works with platforms through the partnership paths on its music API page: 116,000 tracks and roughly 100K sound effects, used by 1M+ creators and by clients including Nike, Microsoft, PepsiCo, and Bridgerton. Whichever model fits, the first step is the same: describe what your users make and where they publish it, and let the partnerships team map that to a path.
Know which model fits? Start the conversation
You know the model. Tell the partnerships team what your users make and they'll map it to a path.
Frequently asked questions
A reseller sells the music library's plans under the library's brand; a white label partner sells the library's catalog under its own brand, with the library invisible to the end user. In both cases the library keeps the licenses with rights holders.
Yes, when the contract with the library grants the right to rebrand and resell its catalog. The licensing obligation to artists and publishers stays with the library regardless of whose brand is on the front. Rebranding a catalog without a written grant is the version that is not legal.
Not for commercial or sync use. The Spotify Developer Policy (effective 15 May 2025) prohibits synchronizing recordings with visual media and commercial use of streaming apps, and Apple's App Review Guidelines section 4.5.2 (updated June 8, 2026) say MusicKit is not a replacement for the licenses a deeper integration needs. That is why platforms partner with a music library.
The library. It holds the licenses with rights holders and is the party that authorizes use. The reseller agreement sets what the platform may sell, where, and at what price, but it does not move the licensing obligation to the platform.
It is negotiated, and the price follows what you sell, where, and how much support you take on. Reseller deals usually run on a wholesale rate or a margin back to the reseller; white label deals usually add a platform fee or a revenue arrangement. Ask the library's partnerships team for terms that match your platform.
