With all the fuss nowadays about copyright infringement, it’s important to ensure you are legally using the music you incorporate into your videos. If you’re a YouTuber, you probably know that YouTube has become more proactive in filtering out copyrighted music – and if the owner of the offending piece objects, your video will be disabled. Even if you’re making a home video you want to give away to friends and family, copyright law applies; whether you use music performed by someone else, or you or a fellow musician have enough talent to reproduce someone else’s song, you have to obtain a license to use the work. The only exception might be the performance of a piece on which the copyright has expired – music in the public domain.
Fortunately, licensing your music doesn’t have to be expensive. At Rumblefish, you can select the right piece of music for your YouTube video for about 5 bucks. If you want to make a wedding DVD for all your guests, the cost runs about 30 or 40 bucks. Just about any use you can imagine for their music, they offer a price – from a YouTube video to a blockbuster movie – and the price varies accordingly. The best feature of the site is its search function – you can search by mood or music type to quickly zero in on what you’re looking for. The sidebar on this site shows examples of YouTube videos I’ve made with Rumblefish music (in case the sidebar changes in the future, it’s this and this).
