What is Royalty Free Music? How Does It Work?
The main objective of this article is to define the meaning of royalty free music and to provide information about its usage, including things to consider when it comes to enhancing your project with the appropriate background music. You’ll also learn about copyright, usage rights, genres, quality and some of the legal aspects
in terms of the usage of royalty free music.
Royalty Free Music Defined
Music, as with most forms of art, falls within some form of copyright, and there’s absolutely no such thing as “copyright free” music. All composers hold the copyright to their own compositions. Royalty free license allows the buyer to use copyrighted material without having to pay license or royalty fees for per volume sold, each
performance or a particular time period of sales or use.
The term royalty free music is applied, if a composer grants the utilization right directly to an end user without dealing with collecting societies like BMI, ASCAP and AFM. Working directly with consumers makes it possible for musicians to establish a significantly lower price. It is important for entrepreneurs, startups and
small businesses who cant afford to pay out hundreds of dollars on every piece of music they need.
Stock Music vs. Royalty Free Music
Stock music, also referred to as production music, is distinct in that the rights to it are solely held by a specific company, referred to as a library. This library” either employs composers or musicians and assigns projects to them or selects pieces that they buy from independent artists. The library or the artists they employ typically receive royalties when a piece they’ve created or performed is used in a project. In essence, this option keeps their customers on the hook, requiring them to pay additional fees when they use the tracks they’ve purchased. This is tough for users on a fixed budget to deal with. With royalty free stock music, the buyer will pay a one-time fee for it. After that they can use the music with no additional monetary obligation to the library.
Royalty Free Music for YouTube
YouTube now has a stock music library of it’s own but their selection basically average. If your project requires more than just basic, “me too” tunes, you should definitely opt for professional royalty free music. Using royalty free music for YouTube is wise, given that building an audience requires branding and branding demands emotion. It’s the emotion in videos that sells and its best created using high quality background music. If you plan to use music in your online videos, the first thing you should bear in mind is to avoid copyright violation.
Always Remember – You Get What You Pay For
Royalty free music provides the perfect opportunity to obtain the background tracks that you need for the projects you’re working on without spending a fortune. That said, there are also risks involved as well. One of the most important things to keep in mind is that you can’t simply “google” for free downloads and assume that it’s
okay to use them for commercial use– if you do this – you’re just asking for trouble. In most cases, these types of free offers come with complex licenses that quite often include concealed legal pitfalls. Being prosecuted due to copyright infringement can be extremely costly, very fast. You’ve probably already heard of this problem as it
pertains to using stock images – royalty free music is very much the same. So always remember, you get, what you pay for. Yes, are some fantastic offers and flat rates available online, but always keep in mind to be sensible and steer clear of shady free download offers.
Royalty Free Music Uses
Royalty free music isn’t confined to a specialized variety of musical styles, however, there are a few genres that play a significant role in today’s digital world of branding and content marketing. Royalty free piano music for instance is often used in emotionally charged videos and ads. There’s really no better way to create soft, romantic or moving tunes than by using music involving the piano or other classical instruments. On the flip side, the background music used video games is typically more intense, in some cases, including heavy metal and rock, played fast and loud.
Royalty free medieval or Celtic music plays a significant roll when it comes to promoting fantasy products including games, films and books. You can count on royalty free music for content creators who specialize in the Renaissance period of mystic creatures like dragons, dwarfs and elves, to use medieval and Celtic tunes.
Podcasts and YouTube
Podcasters like to use music in their intros and for branding objectives, primarily consisting of voice overs, along with an appropriate background track. In addition, videos are the kind of content that is definitely reliant on copyright free music. While YouTube has its own library now with more or less decent tracks, product videos and films always require high quality royalty free songs in order to be successful. Game releases and movie trailers rely heavily on high quality royalty free music and in the age of content marketing, its more important than it has ever been before.
Copyright Free Music
If you’re planning on using copyright free music for commercial use, you should call for full usage rights, without any hidden requirements. Professional royalty free music services usually provide you with full security with regard to the usage of their music. In addition, you dont need to provide credits and you’re permitted to use the music within all of your non-commercial and commercial projects. In regards to copyright free music, this type of digital rights management is essential for todays creatives and marketers. Even in the case of a piece of music that falls in public domain, you need to ask yourself 3 questions: Who composed the music? when did the composer died? and who owns the related rights known as the neighbouring rights?
If you need larger than life, royalty free music for your video, film, video game, branding purposes, etc., it’s important that the music is not only affordable but restriction free. Using a reputable royalty free music service will ensure that the music that you choose for your project, whatever it is, will be the absolute best that it can be, hassle free.
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