Royalty Free Music for YouTube: What You Need to Know
Worried about getting a copyright strike on your YouTube channel? Make sure you’re using the right copyright-free music and following these rules.
Music is an integral part of any video. It’s important for engaging your viewers, conveying emotion, and driving momentum. But just because a track is perfect for your video project, that doesn’t mean you’re free to use it. Chances are, you’re not.
YouTube’s own video about copyright basics, albeit overly simplified.
YouTube has recently run into copyright struggles with content creators getting “strikes.” Most of the content is lawfully used under “fair use” and “parody” laws, but since so much content is going up on YouTube all the time, the algorithm sometimes misses instances of fair use, and it just throws a strike at the creator. Strikes come with pretty severe penalties — they can limit your rights to upload videos. Ultimately, YouTube might even take down your channel.
Now trust me, I’m not siding with YouTube on this one. Their system is broken, and many great creators out there are getting bullied by big corporations with takedown notices and strikes — and YouTube isn’t doing anything about it. When a content creator disputes a strike, it’s up to the person who issued the strike to rescind it (which doesn’t seem very fair). So until the platform changes its copyright policies, you need to know how to protect yourself and your channel.
When it comes to music, using copyrighted music is a surefire way to stop monetization on a video — or even put yourself at risk of a takedown notice. The copyright algorithm will track the music in your video, and it will automatically place ads on your video that pay out to the copyright owner — even if you only used a small amount of the music.
Royalty-free music for YouTube provides a cost-effective, legal alternative. Once you purchase a royalty-free music license, you will never have to pay additional fees to use the track in your online videos. Many royalty-free music libraries allow you to use their tracks in your YouTube videos, even if you’re monetizing them. This is especially important for YouTube power-users who rely on the ad income from their channels. Many pro YouTube and Vimeo users already rely on royalty-free music as a stress-free way to get quality music into their projects. After all, once you’ve spent all of that time preparing, shooting, and editing a project, the last thing you want is to get banned from sharing it due to copyright infringement.
Now obviously, we’re a royalty-free music website, and we sell some great tracks. If you’re looking for royalty-free music for YouTube videos, check out the PremiumBeat.com library, which includes thousands of tracks representing a variety of moods, genres, and styles. All of PremiumBeat’s royalty free music is cleared for use on YouTube, Vimeo, and social networks like Facebook — even when you’re monetizing your content. Avoid the legal headaches and copyright violations. Discover the benefits of royalty-free music for YouTube — engaging, cost-effective, and totally legal.
Looking for more on how to work with royalty-free music? Check out these resources.
