Photo by Juja Han
Originally Posted On: https://playlouder.com/7-places-to-find-free-uncopyrighted-music-for-your-videos/
Anyone who’s ever made a video knows that finding good free music for videos is the hardest part of the job.
Here’s all the info you need to make your music search, and ultimately your video or marketing effort, a success.
Here is Some Background info to Consider When Looking for Free Music for Videos
You want to find uncopyrighted music because it’s free, right? Well—sorry to get all technical about it—but there’s really no such thing as uncopyrighted music. Huh?
What you should really be looking for is music with a Creative Commons license. Before we get into Creative Commons music (and where to find it), let’s quickly clear up a few common misconceptions about music copyrights.
Why is there really no such thing as uncopyrighted music?
By law, after someone creates a piece of music and it’s put into a form that can be distributed, the music has copyright protection…technically. In reality, though, the artist won’t win a lawsuit against someone who uses their music unless they have a registered copyright.
Is royalty free music the same as free uncopyrighted music?
NO!!! Don’t confuse these two, or you will find yourself with a copyright strike or Content ID claim. Royalty free is a kind of copyright. It’s the opposite of a rights managed copyright. Just because it has the word “free” in it, does not mean you do not have to pay. Darn.
So what is royalty free?
This means that you pay the owner of the copyright ONE TIME, and then you can use the track AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANT. (If you want to use a track that has a “rights managed” copyright, then you have to pay the copyright owner for every single view of your video. Not a good idea if you’re on a tight budget). If you want a royalty free track for commercial use (monetized) you will have to pay a bigger one time fee than for non-commercial use.
For example, you can purchase any track on PremiumBeat music production library for $59. It’s a decent deal if you have the cash, as it’s all original music you can’t find on any other library. BUT, if you want to monetize your YouTube video or use it in a commercial, you’ll have to pay $199 for that same track.
Ok, so is there any way to get some decent music that’s completely FREE?!
Helllll, YES there is!!! When people are searching for “free uncopyrighted music” or “Free Music for Videos” they should really be looking for music that has a Creative Commons (CC) license.
A CC license is used when the owner wants other people to share or even build upon and reuse the song. Creative Commons music is a global effort to legitimately share music!
When you use a CC song, you’ll have peace of mind knowing that you can use the track for free—AS LONG AS YOU ABIDE BY THE CONDITIONS THAT ARE SPECIFIED IN THE LICENSE. Don’t worry, though, we can clear this up pretty fast. Hang in there.
Types of Creative Commons licenses
There are several types of Creative Commons licenses. You’re gonna want to narrow your focus to a piece of music with a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). This gives you permission to use the tracks in any way you want, for commercial use, and to even remix or change the track.
Just make sure that you give appropriate credit (exactly as specified by the owner and clearly visible) and also indicate what, if any, changes were made.
If you want to use a piece of music that is licensed as “CC BY-SA”, you can still use it without worries. “SA” stands for “Share Alike” and it means that when you reuse (or change) the track, it still carries the same license with it, and other people can share your track and use it on their videos. Hopefully, that’s not a problem for you…if you’re a sharer!
Watch out for a license that has “CC BY-ND”. “ND” stands for “No Derivative Works” and it means that you cannot alter the piece in ANY WAY. If you want to use it as is, then it won’t be a problem.
Here’s the other one to watch out for: “CC BY-NC”. “NC” stands for “non-commercial” work. If you plan on using the track in a video to make money or sell a product, stay away from this kind of copyrighted music!
TIP: In general, just make sure when you use any Creative Commons music that you have documentation about the items you’ve downloaded, so you won’t run into any problems after you upload your video.
Ok, Let’s start searching for free music for videos already!
Ok, so now that you’re educated, we can get to the good stuff. We’ve collected 7 of the best ways to find free uncopyrighted music—ha! just kidding–Creative Commons Attribution Licensed music easily and for FREE!
1. YouTube Audio Library
This has free music and sound effects and it’s easy to search. You’ll see a dropdown menu called “Attribution” where you can sort by tracks that are “Attribution Required” (CC-BY) or “No Attribution Required” (now that you know what this is all about, you can feel like a pro).
If you select a CC-BY track, make sure you copy and paste the credits exactly as they are written. As long as you properly credit the creator, you shouldn’t have a problem using CC-BY in YouTube or anywhere else you upload your video.
Here’s a great video on how to use the YouTube Audio Library, as well as how to do a search for music channels within YouTube:
TIP: If you’re using a No Attribution Required audio file outside of YouTube, check the creator’s information to verify if the track is under a contract with YouTube. If YouTube has paid for use of the music on its platform, you should probably skip using the track outside of YouTube.
You Can also Just do A Search Within YouTube
Go to the YouTube “search” tool and type in “Creative Commons Music.” You can even get more specific and type, for example, “Creative Commons Music Background Chill.”
You can also check out some videos from your favorite YouTuber and look in the video description to find out if any of the tracks have a Creative Commons license. This is a streamlined technique for finding quality SoundCloud tracks!
2. Hook Sounds
Alvaro Angeloro and Veronica Viera started HookSounds with the aim of creating a credible site that offers quality, curated royalty-free music. All the music on our site is exclusive. This means that you won’t find HookSounds music anywhere else.
You can use the tracks for personal use for Free, under their use and mention license. This means you are able to use it as long as you are not “monetizing” the use of it. But you can get a basic monetization use for $25 bucks witch is pretty cheap for good quality tracks.
3. NoCopyrightSounds (NCS)
If you search for “free uncopyrighted music” or “no copyright music” on YouTube you might come across this YouTube Channel. It’s a popular channel turned record label from the UK, that features free electronic music for independent Creators (it’s not free if you’re a Brand).
You just have to make sure to give credits as posted. You can use these tracks on YouTube and Twitch—even in monetized videos! BUT, you might receive a copyright claim if you try to use it on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.
4. Free Stock Music
Although it would seem like a self explanatory website name, you may have to pull out your wallet in some cases. You’re going to find mostly Creative Commons Attribution Required tracks here, but some are “CC-BY-NC” (Non-Commerical Use).
Be careful and make sure you know which ones you’re looking at. Luckily, they offer you the option to buy the track for around $9 if you want to use it for monetized videos.
5. Purple Planet Music
This site offers tons of free Creative Commons music (CC-BY) and all you need to do is credit them! You can use them for your monetized video, but they only give you a 192kbps MP3 (which should be fine for background music).
If you want a higher quality download, you can pay 8 bucks. Pretty reasonable!
6. Take Tones
Taketones has a really good library and you can use their music for free for non-commercial projects such as home videos and non-monetized YouTube content.
Such usage is covered by a Free Creative Commons License (which is only valid if you credit us them the video description).
You can also pay for tracks for commercial use, or upgrade to a paid monthly plan to get unlimited tracks for a pretty low price.
7. Free Music Archive
Just as the name suggests, this site has free music, and of course, most are under Creative Commons. To find out which kind of CC it is—and if it’s available for commercial use—just click on the song title and then look at the far right column.
The license info is under the box which shows the number of track downloads.
NOW—what if you need even more track options, or track customization?
Ok, you’ve got 7 options that will work well for finding free uncopyrighted music for a myriad of video purposes, like background music or whatever. But what if you need a really killer track, and perhaps need it customized?
Well, when it comes to music (or anything else in life) you get what you pay for, so you’re gonna find a much wider and richer music selection if you cough up some actual dough.
Here’s are a few more bonus sites for you to check out, that have subscription and pay-as-you-go models, along with a wider selection!
Epidemic Sound
Starting at just $15/month for an individual, you can download as much music as you need (including stems!) for as long as your subscription is active. You are completely copyright cleared for use on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitch. For a measly $15 per month, you can have peace of mind AND an awesome selection of over 30,000 songs. It’s probably worth the price if you consistently need fresh and unique tracks.
Enavato Music
Envato Market has everything from word-press themes to website code to graphics templates…but they also have some decent music at decent prices. (FYI..hit the “Audio” tab)
In addition to music however they also have lots of great sound effects as well. You can actually get any kind of media you would need for a project from Envato. its kind of amazing.
APM Music
If you are starting to make real money with your videos, or are getting a budget to make a commercial or whatever, you should check out APM. We owned a post-production company in Los Angeles, and we used APM all the time.
Their music is of incredible quality for the money. Plus you can get splits of everything you buy, and customization of you need it.
In Conclusion
There you have it! Awesome simple tools to keep your videos packed with legal music that’s FREE! If you want to learn more about why we have so many free options for music these days, read How Has The Digitization Of Music Changed The Industry?