Sites for Downloading Royalty Free Music
Royalty free music is music that the artist has released for people the use any way they want. The idea of being ‘royalty-free’ is that you don’t need to pay any royalty for using it. These usually come at a small cost (you can buy CDs/downloads full of royalty free music), but are also sometimes available for free. My favourite at the moment is www.incompetech.com by Kevin MacLeod. He has a wide variety of tracks which you can download at a high quality, and they are all released under a Creative Commons License. He asks that if you use his stuff then you make a small donation per track used. He also has several links to other good sites of similar musicians producing royalty free music like www.audionautix.com by Jason Shaw.
Another site is www.flashkit.com though sometimes you need to be careful of people who have posted copyrighted material (as you do on vimeo and youtube). Also www.partnersinrhyme.com has some tracks available for free, and lots at a small cost.
There are loads more you could find if you search the net. Just make sure to read the site’s ‘terms of use’ and ‘license agreement’ to make sure you are aware of how you can use their content.
Another great way of getting music you can use is by asking a band you know (or who you think might give you permission) if you can use one of their recorded tracks. They may even be able to provide you with the track without vocals if that’s what you need. See Page CXVI for a great band that has made this really simple. If you’re in a band and would offer your music for others to use, feel free to comment and leave a link to your site.
Update 1/6/11: I just got forwarded a link to www.mobygratis.com where Moby (that’s right, the famous musician) has made a whole heap of tracks available for free download and use for non-profit/non-commercial videos/websites/etc. You just need to create a log-in, and then when you find the track you want to use, you request it and are then granted permission to download and use it. What great generosity!
Update 29/9/11: Vimeo have just launched their Music Store vimeo.com/musicstore which is really clear on the licensing, has good quality stuff, and quite a lot of free stuff. It also has some good features for searching and saving tracks that you like without having to download them straight away. I think I’m going to enjoy this!
Music – Page CXVI
This group in the US put old hymns to some really cool music. They’ve even released some their tracks as instrumentals (without vocals) which are really cool for using as backing tracks (I used one of their tracks in Blindness). They are released under a Creative Commons License which means they grant you permission to use their music for videos so long as it’s not commercial/not for profit. If you’re in doubt, send them an email. They’d love to hear how you use their music too (this is a good habit to get into – thanking people whose music you use!)
