A music track makes a video more absorbing. But, there’s an issue with adding a music soundtrack to a video. If you don’t have a proper licence for the music, it could result in the video being taken down and possibly a lawsuit by the music copyright holder.
In order to avoid potential problems with using music in your video, you have to be careful in choosing the source from where you obtain it. In this article, we give suggestions for both free and paid sources of music.
Free music
- YouTube Audio Library – https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/
- You can download and use music from this library for videos that go on YouTube. Do not use this library for non-YouTube videos.
- An example of where this music library is used: this YouTube channel with over 600K subscribers uses music tracks from the YouTube library: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ0yBou72Lz9fqeMXh9mkog
- Free Music Archive – https://freemusicarchive.org/
- When selecting music, click on the License button and check Public Domain, Commercial Use or Use in a Remix or Video as applicable to your use case.
Paid music
- AudioBlocks – https://audioblocks.com
- Their unlimited download plan costs $15 per month.
- PremiumBeat – https://www.premiumbeat.com/
- This is a source of premium music. You can purchase a track for $49 to use in a single project.
For certain free music tracks, you might be required to attribute the music creator in the video description. In all cases, whether free or paid, you must keep records of where you obtained music and corresponding licence documentation if available.
Proper sourcing of music is a great way to not only enhance your video but also to avoid legal headaches in the future.