For Creators
How to license your viral video - and actually get paid
Your phone buzzes. Then it doesn’t stop. Overnight, a fifteen-second clip you filmed almost by accident has racked up millions of views. It’s exciting - and then the questions start. Can you make money from this? Who owns it now that it’s everywhere? And why does it feel like everyone except you is profiting from your footage?
Virality and ownership are two different things
Views don’t pay your rent. What pays is licensing - the practice of granting a newsroom, brand, or platform the right to use your footage in exchange for a fee. The problem is that most creators have no idea this market even exists, let alone how to access it.
Meanwhile, the moment a clip goes viral, it gets re-uploaded, clipped, and redistributed by dozens of pages with zero attribution and zero payment to the person who filmed it. Without active rights management, that’s money walking out the door - permanently.
What licensing actually involves
Licensing your video properly means three things happening at once:
- Rights protection - registering your footage with the platforms (YouTube Content ID, Instagram Rights Manager, Facebook Rights Manager) so unauthorized use can be tracked and challenged.
- Sales - actively pitching your footage to newsrooms, media outlets, and brands who are specifically looking for licensed viral content.
- Payment collection - negotiating rates, invoicing buyers, and getting the money to you.
Doing this alone is a full-time job most creators don’t have time for, which is exactly the gap TBViral was built to close.
How TBViral handles it
You submit your video for free. If it has licensing potential, we clear the rights, protect it across platforms within seven days, and start pitching it to our network of buyers. When a deal closes, you keep 65% of the net value - paid monthly once your balance clears €30.
Read the full breakdown on our How it works page, or if you’re ready, go straight to submitting your video.