Finding songs without copyright protection may seem appealing, but that task may prove challenging. Music copyright usually lasts until its rights holder passes away plus 70 years.
Musical works that fall under the public domain (and thus truly free from copyright claims) include those published before 1924 and those where their original owners relinquished their copyrights; but even these works may still be subject to claims from artists.
Public Domain
Most people are familiar with the term “Public Domain,” which refers to works such as songs that no longer fall under protection by copyright – either because their protection expired, was forfeited, or was never assigned in the first place. However, other types of licenses exist for music that make using songs for commercial purposes simpler, including Creative Commons licenses.
Copyright law protects the financial and ownership interests of musical artists for an extended period, lasting several decades postmortem up to the length of their lives plus 70 years after death. After this point, music enters the Public Domain without needing to pay an artist or their estate any fee for using their works; several songs have recently entered this stage with more entering all the time.
Some songs available for download come from websites specializing in free public domain music, with FreePD featuring an extensive catalog that can be browsed and easily downloaded; they even feature songs licensed for commercial use – plus they keep adding more!
Open Music Archive offers another great option with their large library of digitized Public Domain music that spans civil war music, blues music, traditional classical, and other categories such as Civil War. There are different license terms attached to each piece – some may impose certain restrictions or requirements that you should be mindful of before selecting specific tracks to listen to.
YouTube, SoundCloud and other popular sites also provide public domain songs and compositions in traditional sheet music form uploaded by users – but be mindful that some arrangements published under Creative Commons License may not fall within its definition – for instance choral arrangements of songs published as Creative Commons license aren’t necessarily part of the public domain; therefore contact with its owner is necessary in order to confirm whether you can legally use it in your business.
Royalty-Free
Royalty-free music licensing provides creators with a cost-cutting alternative that doesn’t involve paying royalties to song rights holders, making the song available without incurring costly royalty fees for use. Royalty-free songs come in all genres: upbeat, relaxing, energetic cinematic or ambient; it can serve as the backdrop of horror movies or be the centerpiece for corporate presentations.
Royalty-free music has long been popular with YouTube creators, especially classic pieces such as Beethoven’s Fur Elise or Mozart’s Magic Flute that have fallen into public domain. These pieces can now be used any way desired by any creator who desires. In addition, you’ll often find rock and hip hop tracks available royalty free, which also makes up part of YouTube creators’ playlists and TikTok pages.
Not only must royalty-free music meet high-quality standards and fit with the mood of videos or podcasts, it must also feel authentic to viewers. You can license this type of track in various forms ranging from one-off payments to subscription services as well as purchase it from iTunes, Amazon and other music retailers online.
Royalty-free music provided by companies that specialize in this content for creators can be truly outstanding. These sites specialize in offering high-quality songs that fit seamlessly into videos as well as editing tools to enable easy customization and editing – helping creators make videos that stand out.
With Descript, creators can access thousands of high-quality royalty free songs, preview each track before purchasing and discover what would be an ideal sound fit for their videos or podcasts. Subscription services also make licensing music for multiple projects much simpler.
Creative Commons
Creative Commons provides open licenses and other legal tools that enable creators to share their works with the world. Their licenses are freely used and internationally recognised; additionally, Creative Commons maintains a content directory wiki and public domain dedication tool which enable people to easily locate copyright free music that may be used commercially.
At times it can be difficult to tell whether a piece of music falls under copyright free jurisdiction. In the United States, songs typically fall into public domain when written and published before 1924 in sheet music form or recorded prior to that date – though recording technologies made widely available after 1924 make this task challenging. To simplify things it helps if popular songs can be identified as copyright free by searching a library database like Songsterr.
As part of your search for copyright-free music, it is crucial that you understand the various Creative Commons licenses. This enables you to choose how and under what conditions to use the song; for instance a CC BY-SA license permits you to share and remix while CC BY-ND license allows derivative works without modification; note however that certain Creative Commons licenses such as CC BY-NC and BY-ND may conflict.
The Free Music Archive is an invaluable resource for music licensed under Creative Commons. You can filter your search by mood and genre; track length; tempo; license type and attribution requirements. Plus there’s even a section dedicated exclusively to video project music where you can search specific genres or filters in order to find just the right track!
Stock Music provides free background music for videos. Their extensive catalog covers everything from pop tunes and piano solos, audio logos/idents/corporate tracks/world beats/electronica to ambient music – with various licensing options and high-quality download files available for offline use.
Copyright
Utilizing music without copyright protection is a common practice among content creators, enabling them to easily produce engaging videos for social media platforms like YouTube, Twitch and Tiktok with minimal difficulty. While previously it was difficult acquiring permission from copyright holders and paying fees before using their songs; today finding copyright free music online through sites such as PremiumBeat has become much simpler.
Songs are considered copyrighted when they combine music and lyrics into one work; however, it’s important to keep in mind that their musical and sound recording components are two separate works owned by different entities; the songwriter may own their musical work while its producer holds ownership over its sound recording component; each piece of music may therefore require unique licensing requirements.
Songs without copyright restrictions tend to be older and may only possess the composition’s copyright, while its sound recording may still be protected by its own set of rights. To be certain of your rights when purchasing these tracks, check whether the musical work was published prior to 1924 and recorded before. That way you’ll know whether obtaining necessary licenses can be obtained in order to use any particular track.
The term ‘copyright free’ can be confusing as many people use it interchangeably with “royalty-free” and “public domain.” While content of tracks might not fall under copyright protection, royalties might still need to be paid; this stands in stark contrast with royalty-free music which does not require payment of royalties (or ongoing fees) upon use.
Royalty-free music offers many advantages, the main being accessibility and ease of licensing. While in the past this could take days or even weeks to obtain permission from different copyright holders for each song, now you can obtain top quality copyright free tracks in one easy step with PremiumBeat’s selection ranging in mood, length, BPM, genre and Creative Commons type – you simply click!