Overview
Sync.Land is a marketplace where independent musicians license their songs directly to filmmakers, game developers, and other content creators. Buyers can browse hundreds of tracks, pick a free open license or pay for a commercial sync license (a license to use a song in a video, film, ad, or game), and walk away with a permanent receipt of the deal. The artist sets the terms themselves, including where the song can be used, how long the license lasts, and the price. Payment goes straight to the musician1.
Sync.Land is built on Cardano by Awen LLC, the studio led by founder Ian McCullough. It is the public successor to an earlier test version called Free Music Land. Development is funded through a Cardano Project Catalyst grant, the ecosystem's community-voted funding program2.
Key Features
- Direct artist payments. When a creator licenses a track, the fee goes to the musician without label or middleman cuts. Artists keep control over price and where their music can be used1.
- License certificates as Cardano NFTs. Every license is minted as an on-chain certificate, a digital receipt stored on Cardano that proves the agreement. The approach borrows from how NFT marketplaces record ownership and applies it to music rights, giving buyers a clear public record if rights are ever questioned1.
- Two license types. Anyone can grab a track under a Creative Commons Attribution license, a free option that lets people use the song as long as they credit the artist. Commercial users pay for a standard sync license suitable for ad-supported videos, films, and games1.
- Open-source codebase. Awen publishes the full source code on GitHub, so other developers can study or extend how the marketplace works3.
- Built for film, gaming, and video. The catalog is organized for the most common uses: short social videos, podcasts, indie films, commercials, and soundtracks for games.
What to Expect
Visitors who land on Sync.Land see a streaming-style catalog. Songs preview as waveforms with a play button, and each track page shows the licensing options the artist has chosen. Filmmakers and game developers can search by mood, genre, or use case, then check out in a familiar cart-style flow. The marketplace also surfaces curated playlists and artist pages, similar to the way an indie music store presents its library.
Musicians who want to upload their work register as artists, set their pricing, and decide whether to offer free Creative Commons downloads, paid sync licenses, or both. The platform takes care of issuing the on-chain certificate when a buyer completes a purchase, so the artist does not need any blockchain experience to take part.
The catalog skews toward independent artists, including founder Ian McCullough's own project under the name Cullah and Germany-based musician Steven William Cooper. Sync.Land sits inside a broader Cardano-focused studio: Awen also builds Tikit, a ticketing platform, and the project has been mentioned in Cardano ecosystem updates from Intersect, the member-based organization overseeing protocol governance4. The catalog and feature set continue to grow.
