How to get Royalty Free Music for Youtube

Do you have a YouTube video that needs some background music? Perhaps you’ve uploaded an awesome GoPro video and now need a killer backing track, but you don’t want to risk having it taken down because you get a DCMA Slap.

It’s a total minefield out there and there’s nothing worse than creating your work, becoming successful and then getting slapped with a copyright strike on youtube. Worst still your account gets terminated. Ouch!

There’s a ton of Royalty Free Music Sites out there but let me show you an easier way to get the music tracks you can freely use for your videos.

How to get Royalty Free Music for YouTube

You see YouTube has finally woken up to the needs of their YouTubers and is building a library of Royalty Free Music for us all of to enjoy.

What started as small sub-100 song library has recently grown to a library of over 1000+ tracks. So what changed?

Well, YouTube finally figured out that free Royalty Free Music is a lot harder to come by than Royalty Free Music with attribution and has started accepting music from musicians that require attribution.

I’m guessing they didn’t have an appropriate license to work from because it has literally changed in the last few days and now they are using the Creative Commons License structure.

The good news for you is, the artists will start publishing their work on YouTube so you won’t have so much running around looking for that perfect track.

Here’s the link to the YouTube Audio Library – https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music

And a video showing you how to use it…

What is YouTube Ad-Supported Music?

When you visit the Audio Library you’ll notice there is another tab labeled ‘Ad-Supported Music’ which contains popular mainstream music in it.

Wow! that’s Awesome!

Wrong!

You see if you use these music tracks to solve your YouTube music problem, you’ll also waive the right to earn money from your videos. WTF!

Yep, you bust your gut making awesome youtube videos and then someone else gets paid for it. Ouch!

Unless you’ve got a presentation video and don’t want to pre-roll ads anyway, don’t use these tracks. Hang on there will still be ads, so what exactly is the plus side here?

There isn’t one, so stay clear of the Ad-Supported Music tab until Youtube finds a way for you to at least share in some of the revenue.

How to avoid a DCMA Takedown

A takedown sounds like you’ve been in the ring for a few rounds, but seriously it’s a bad thing to happen to your YouTube account.

You see Youtube put’s a RED ‘X‘ (not exactly sure of the color) against your channel when you get SLAPPED and too many of those means you’re a high risk and YouTube could terminate your account. Gulp!

Yep, you’ll lose the lot and don’t be surprised when your outstanding earnings are also wiped.

The best way to avoid this DMCA Takedown is to play by the rules and use approved music such as the Royalty Free Music I’ve already mentioned.

However, YouTube is really just a bunch of bots cataloging your videos and may get it wrong sometimes, so make sure you grab the license information that relates to the music you use.

Yes, even free music should come with a license. If YouTube aren’t happy with the legality of the music in your video they’ll ask for this license as supporting documentation. So be prepared, not alarmed.

Of course, you could always avoid youtube copyright infringement by using one of the tracks from YouTube’s own Audio Library and hopefully they aren’t dumb enough to DCMA SLAP you.

How to do attribution correctly

So I’ve briefly mentioned this license called Creative Commons but what is it and how do you use it.

The Creative Commons License is a legally binding license created for people that want to share their work, but also want legal protection if something goes wrong.

If a piece of music is governed by a creative commons license then you’ll first need to understand which one, and then follow the requirements of the license.

A typical Creative Commons License is Attribution, which states “You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.” and that’s the human readable version. lol

Essentially, you need to credit the artist and not make out it’s your own work, plus if you get into any trouble the artist doesn’t want any association with you 😉

Remember these people are giving you a gift so mention them, link back to them and generally promote them when you can. The bigger the stage the better. Be more generous than they have been to you.

They don’t want your money, but rather your appreciation.

How to get Royalty Free Sound Effects

Sometimes might need some sound bites for a movie or stop animation and YouTube have you covered there too. Head over to the Sound Effects tab and grab what you need.

The quality is professional, but use the popularity bar indicator to quickly sift through the chaff.

Again these royalty free sound effects are free to use and don’t appear to need any attribution, which is great for you. Imagine using a few dozen sound effects for a movie and then having to attribute all the artists.  Sounds painful doesn’t it?

Anyway, use attribution free sound effects when you can. If you can’t find what you need on YouTube then try a site like Freesound.org although most of these sound bites require attribution.

Final Say on Youtube Royalty Free Music

By using YouTubes Royalty Free Music, you are essentially putting the responsibility back on them to provide and maintain the correct licensing paperwork. Using this repository is one of the best ways to avoid YouTube Copyright Infringement.

As I’ve seen in recent days, more music is being added daily to the YouTube Audio Library and this will probably become the number one place to find your royalty free music for YouTube.

And the quality is improving over time too as more and more artists will come onboard the YouTube Behemoth.

The Youtube Audio Library was launched in 2013 and has only just started to gain some traction, but I think the wheels are starting to move freely now.

What this space…

What’s your opinion on the best place to find Royalty Free Music for your Youtube videos? Please have your say below.