There are a lot of misconceptions about the use of music for your videos.\u00a0 Let’s start by addressing those, and move on to a list of options – literally about a million options – that may work for your particular project.\u00a0 (And if you know of other resources, let me know and I’ll update the list!)<\/p>\n
Myth #1:\u00a0 “If I only use 30 seconds (or 10 seconds, or 1 minute) then I’m not violating copyright.”\u00a0 This is a common misconception that is even being taught in journalism schools.\u00a0 If I create and perform a piece of music, I automatically own the copyright – down to the last second.<\/p>\n
Myth #2:\u00a0 “If I’m not making money off it, it’s OK.”\u00a0 Copyright is copyright, whether someone makes a profit off my creativity or not.\u00a0 For a home video of your vacation that you’re going to burn to DVD and keep at home, no one is going to have an issue with it because they won’t know about it (though it’s still not legal).\u00a0 If you’re planning to do just about anything else with it, you need permission.<\/p>\n
Myth #3:\u00a0 “I can use it because it’s in the public domain.”\u00a0 Well…that depends.\u00a0 Any musical work created before 1922 in the United States is public domain.\u00a0 Depending on whom you ask, however, recordings of those songs are not.\u00a0 And considering most recordings were done after 1922, it’s slim pickings anyway.\u00a0 But if you want to give this a go, , check out PublicDomain4u<\/a>, which also has links to other sites, or the Open Music Archive.\u00a0 Know how to play an instrument?\u00a0 Go crazy – check out this site to determine if something is in the public domain.<\/a><\/p>\n Myth #4:\u00a0 “I can use it because I sang (played, whistled, hummed) the song myself.”\u00a0 The tune itself is subject to copyright.\u00a0 A performance of that tune is a separate copyright requiring permission by the composer.\u00a0 And sound recordings by musicians – well, they’re extremely complicated because publishers get involved, rights are bought and sold…it’s a huge headache.<\/p>\n Myth #5:\u00a0 “I can use Creative Commons or ‘royalty free’ music in a video contest.”\u00a0 Typically, video contest organizers require you to hand over your work to enter – or to claim your prize.\u00a0 Check their fine print.\u00a0 A “Creative Commons” license almost always prevents you from doing this.\u00a0 They’re sharing their music to support your creativity – not giving you the right to transfer ownership to a contest sponsor.\u00a0 Same for licensed or “royalty free” music (which is also licensed, but for a one-time flat fee).\u00a0 They’ve licensed you to use the music, but that usually does not include the right to transfer that license to a contest sponsor.<\/p>\n All that having been said, there are a number of options available.\u00a0 For commercial works, fair use<\/em> is a great loophole – although it is, legally speaking, poorly defined.\u00a0 But there are a number of fair use options.\u00a0 If you happen to catch your kids on video singing “Happy Birthday” or the TV\/radio was on in the background and got on your video, that’s OK.\u00a0 Parody is OK.\u00a0 Using a piece for critique is OK.\u00a0 And so are a surprising number of other cases.\u00a0 Check out this web site to determine if you may qualify for a fair use exclusion for your video.<\/a> It’s well worth the read.<\/p>\n You may also be a musician, or know someone – say, the high school band or a neighbor – who may be interested in collaborating with you.\u00a0 Again, focus on public domain works or original composition.\u00a0 Don’t know anyone?\u00a0 There are lots of folks on the internet who would like to work with you – sometimes for a fee, sometimes just for publicity.\u00a0 Or maybe you want to agree that any money or prizes are split 75-25, or 80-20:<\/p>\n – Undergunned Productions<\/a>, on MySpace has a browsable ambient \/ rock collection and supports indie film.<\/p>\n – Settle the Score<\/a> is for projects that are a bit more ambitious than a YouTube clip (no offense to YouTube), offering to develop music scores, such as for ad agencies or video.<\/p>\n – You could also collaborate with Moby<\/a> (yes, that<\/em> Moby) – he has placed a collection of music that is “free to independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short” (there’s a form to fill out).\u00a0 If you want to use it commercially, your licensing fee goes to the Humane Society – how cool is that?<\/p>\n Free Music<\/span><\/p>\n If that doesn’t suit you, there are a number of folks out there who put out their music in one or another “Creative Commons” license, which is just fine for noncommercial work.\u00a0 Be sure and check their license to ensure you’ve complied with its requirements – such as republishing under the same license, giving credit to them, whatever they ask:<\/p>\n – CCMixter<\/a> is an awesome site whose subtitle reads, “Download. Sample. Cut-up. Share.”\u00a0 A community of folks who share and remix samples, they offer both the samples and the resulting works created from them for re-use under a variety of Creative Commons licenses…again, read the fine print to avoid using original works inappropriately.\u00a0 The site is very user-friendly.<\/p>\n – The Freesound Project<\/a>, unlike CCMixter, focuses on individual sounds, rather than mixes.\u00a0 A bit of work is required to assemble the sounds into soundtracks.\u00a0 Again, check the Creative Commons license.<\/p>\n – Audiofarm<\/a> is a bit experimental, and some searching is needed to find something useful.\u00a0 You could spend a lot of time just browsing and listening, and if you’re looking for something quick to complete your project, this may not be the best place to start.<\/p>\n – Jimmy Gelhaar<\/a> is an aspiring musician whose work I have used quite a bit.\u00a0 He has a selection of pretty well-done pieces for different moods, you just have to register to use them.\u00a0 He just wants to be credited in order for you to use his work.<\/p>\n – Derek Audette<\/a> hosts a couple dozen creative commons tracks on his site, with descriptions, for download.<\/p>\n – Kevin MacLeod has collected a variety of creative interests, including an extensive music collection, on his site, Incompetech.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Some of his stuff is a bit whimsical, but his detailed search function (search by mood and genre) make his site useful to find something\u00a0 for your video in relative short order.\u00a0 He lets you use his music for just about anything, as long as you give attribution.<\/p>\n – Taylor Hayward<\/a> is a software designer and pianist who loves to compose and play music, and offers “ambient classical music” tracks, completely free, no strings attached.<\/p>\n – Dan-O at Danosongs<\/a> has a variety of vocal and instrumental tracks he has made available for free use (with attribution).\u00a0 You can even sign up for a “free download of the week” notification by email.<\/p>\n – Internet Audio Guy<\/a> has about a dozen tracks for free, as publicity for his main site.\u00a0 It’s not much, but it may be what you need – and you can always check his main site for more (paid) options.<\/p>\n – Mp3Free<\/a> offers a lot of his\/her own songs for free (creative commons) use (attribution).\u00a0 The only weird thing about it is that nowhere on the site is an actual name listed.\u00a0 I guess you just credit mp3free.com.\u00a0 Also links to other free sites.<\/p>\n – Sonnyboo<\/a> offers 20 tracks for free download, no strings attached.\u00a0 He calls it royalty-free, but in actuality he has donated them to the public domain, in exchange to crediting John Scott Ross for the piece.<\/p>\n – RockProper<\/a> digitally distribute free music from a number of different artists.\u00a0 The music may be downloaded freely, but be sure and check out the licensing requirements for each musician – most of which is Creative Commons (but there are different types and requirements)<\/p>\n – Dogmazic<\/a> is a similar service as RockProper.\u00a0 They boast nearly 40,000 pieces of music.\u00a0 Much of their site, however, is in French.\u00a0 They have a variety of search options, though I was unable to browse (listen to) music directly on the site for some reason.<\/p>\n – OpSound<\/a> is a large collection of music contributed under Creative Commons – share alike (meaning your derivative work must carry the same “copyleft”).<\/p>\n – Free Music Archive<\/a> is a collection of tens of thousands of quality music pieces, hosted by public radio station WFMU (and joined by a host of other curators).\u00a0 Each song has its own track page that explains how you can use it and how you need to credit the owner.\u00a0 The search function is pretty good to, and lets you filter by “sync to video”.\u00a0 And listening and downloading are simple as well.<\/p>\n – Human Workshop<\/a> is another such site – with, from what I’ve listened to, some unique and quality music.\u00a0 The web site says it’s all licensed via a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license<\/a>; if you want to use it commercially they give you a form to fill out.<\/p>\n – You can use the files at Free Production Tracks<\/a> for any purpose – commercial or noncommercial.\u00a0 They ask that you refer back to their site in your credits.<\/p>\n – Royalty Free Music<\/a> hosts 12,000 audio files for licensing ($9.95 per track, $99 per CD), but they also offer different kinds of audio tracks, beats, samples and effects for free use in nonprofit work<\/a>.\u00a0 They rotate which files are free, so keep checking back – and ask that you credit their main site.<\/p>\n – Soundclick<\/a> hosts just shy of an amazing 400,000 pieces of music.\u00a0 You can search by genre and get commercial licenses for between $10 and $50, or select “creative commons” from the pull-down menu at top left, and filter for free music (again checking attribution requirements for each you use).<\/p>\n – the Internet Archive<\/a> is a project to preserve all kinds of audio files, including live performances by well-known artists.\u00a0 If you absolutely want to use a big-name piece of music but don’t want to track down who owns the rights<\/a>, this is the only way I know of that you can do it.\u00a0 These archive files are only for noncommercial use – check the individual file information to determine further requirements and\/or limitations.<\/p>\n Free Sound Effects<\/span><\/p>\n – For sound effects – completely free – check out Universal Soundbank<\/a>.\u00a0 The French version claims 20,000 sounds (the English claim of 12,000 is probably out of date) – and they’re all listed alphabetically by category.<\/p>\n – Pacific Digital Video<\/a> mainly offers sound effects, but also a handful of completed music tracks – as well as lots of links to other resources.\u00a0 Use their sounds in exchange for a link back to their site.<\/p>\n – Music for Video<\/a> offers both music and sound effects – but the music requires an annual fee of 1400 euro for permission to use all their music.\u00a0 The sound effects, however, are free. They just ask that you link back to their site if you use it on the internet.<\/p>\n Music for a fee (licensing)<\/span><\/p>\n If you’re looking for a broader pool to choose from, check out these web sites that specialize in licensing music and sounds from a large number of contributors:<\/p>\n – Music2License<\/a> offers a license for 40 Pounds Sterling, regardless of what the music is used for.\u00a0 They have a wide variety of music styles and offer a number of different search options.<\/p>\n – The Blue Mask<\/a> offers BIG sounds composed by Simon Wilkinson for (all prices in pounds Sterling) 0.99 for the mp3 plus 9.99 (noncommercial) or 49.99 (commercial) licensing fee.\u00a0 Fully searchable and browsable, the only downside is that the previous include a woman repeatedly saying “the blue mask dot com” which can get irritating.\u00a0 Probably he knows I own AudioRecorder Pro (see below).<\/p>\n – SmartAssMusic<\/a> offers a variety of services, including music licensing, most commonly for $20 per track.\u00a0 They also span the gamut of music styles.<\/p>\n – FreePlayMusic<\/a> has about 6200 pieces of production music, indie music, and sound effects you can license.\u00a0 The production music is the kind of stuff you’d have difficulty finding elsewhere, but you’re also going to pay $25 to $75, if not more (less than $10 for sound effects).\u00a0 It’s free for in-home or educational use; however, I had trouble previewing files – it uses Media Player, and it kept freezing up.<\/p>\n – Jamendo<\/a> offers 30,000 “free and legal” music albums for download and use for private projects; but if you want to share your video, they’re not free – but in many cases, nearly so.\u00a0 Select your song, specify its use and the license term, and you’ll be given the licensing cost – often as little as $3.\u00a0 You can also “go pro” and get access to everything for an annual fee.\u00a0 The cool thing about this site is it’s a community – meaning the tracks and albums are sorted by popularity.<\/p>\n – Citybus Productions<\/a> as a smallish (but growing, I presume) collection of production tracks you can license for about $25 bucks (web site, amateur video) or more for broader uses; and a list of sound loops for producing your own music.\u00a0 You can search by category, but their tracks are not tagged for other search options.<\/p>\n – Rumblefish<\/a> hosts 30,000 pieces of music for licensing, and I particularly like them because of their user-friendly search function that allows you to search by mood, and the fact that for a YouTube video or a vlog piece, they only charge $5 (though the price increases for other, more commercial uses).\u00a0 They have a good working relationship with YouTube, and if you use their work it will immediately be flagged on YouTube.\u00a0 They won’t deactivate your audio, but if you want your video to be ad-free, dispute the copyright and put your invoice number on the form – it’ll be cleared up within a day or two.<\/p>\n – SoundSnap<\/a> offers an amazing 100,000<\/em> sound effects and music loops (for use in a music editing\/production program) at reasonable pricing depending on how many you buy (from $1,80 per sound to $249 for an annual unlimited subscription) and they are working on plans whereby you can contribute your own sounds for revenue sharing.<\/p>\n Other stuff<\/span><\/p>\n Also intriguing is Hobnox<\/a>, a Germany-based sharing platform of sorts (in public beta testing).\u00a0 They offer users 2 GB space, and the ability to upload and share (and download) all sorts of content.\u00a0 They claim to be a forum to facilitate collaboration between creative types, so you may find someone there with similar interests to work with. In addition, they have a somewhat limited but extremely user-friendly, cloud-based AudioTool<\/a> to create your own beats (here’s a sample<\/a> of what I did in 20 minutes – gaps are due to my bandwidth) Check out their “what is Hobnox” link<\/a> for more.<\/p>\n Along similar lines, New Grounds<\/a> is a sharing and collaboration platform – a social networking site for creative types.\u00a0 In addition to music, they have flash video, gaming and other collections\/sharing portals.\u00a0 Each uploaded music piece comes with its own copyright information.<\/p>\n Niklas Aman<\/a> specializes in music for video, and has a fair number of pretty good tracks for different moods.\u00a0 He charges by the second and is very responsive to requests.\u00a0 Check him out on Twitter.<\/a><\/p>\n DIY Tools<\/span><\/p>\n If you want to take a shot at producing your own audio, the simplest option is to record it with your camcorder, import it to your editing program, delete the video, and edit away.\u00a0 You can also record directly to your computer – but I’d advise against using your computer mike.\u00a0 I’ve had pretty good results with the USB mic that comes with the RockBand video game.\u00a0 A couple of programs you can use to record are Audio Recorder Pro<\/a>, for $39.95 which I’ve used for years with great success, or WireTap Studio<\/a> for $69 – which I haven’t tried.\u00a0 Of course there are plenty of other programs, including the option to just use Windows MovieMaker directly.<\/p>\n Have I missed any?\u00a0 Send me an email<\/a> and I’ll add to this list!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n