A common question that YouTube content creators have is where can they find free music to put into the background of their videos. If you're a content creator on YouTube, it's important to know that you aren't allowed to put music into your videos that violate the copyright law. Doing so puts your videos at risk of being muted or taken down by YouTube.
A mistake that I often see with video creators is that when looking for music to use for their videos, they search for "royalty free music." It's usually assumed that royalty free music is free of charge and can be used freely in YouTube videos. Neither of these things is true.
Premium Beat defines royalty free music as follows:
"In a nutshell, Royalty Free Music refers to a type of music licensing that allows the purchaser to pay for the music license only once and to use the music for as long as desired. "
If you're looking for royalty-free music options, a simple online search will give you thousands of options. However, because you're reading this article, I'm going to assume that what you're looking for is free music that is also free of any copyright issues that prevent you from monetizing your videos. In other words, free royalty free music.
Below I'm sharing five websites that offer royalty free music for free.
As you visit the sites in this article, keep in mind that terms of use can change. I recommend double-checking the site terms before downloading any music.
#1. YouTube Audio Library
YouTube offers hundreds of songs that can be used in your videos for free. They also have a music policies section that lists the current copyright policies for popular music.
When browsing, you can search music by genre, mood, instrument, duration, and attribution.
#2. dig.ccMixer
dig.ccMixer has over 3,000 free for commercial use songs. When using music from this website, make sure you credit the creator in your video description.
#3. Incompetech
Composer Kevin MacLeod provides a high-quality selection of free music that you can use in your videos. All he asks is that you credit him in the description of your videos.
#4. Bensound
This is another website that provides high-quality music that you can use in your YouTube videos. Bensound offers a variety of music categories such as acoustic, cinematic, electronica, jazz, and more. If you decide to use the free music for your videos, you must credit the artist.
#5. Josh Woodward
Josh offers a beautiful selection of over 200 songs that you can freely download and use in your videos. Josh allows you to sort music by mood, rating, genre, theme, length, and even tempo. As with most free royalty free music, you must provide credit to the artist in your video description.
There you have it. Five websites that allow you to add music to your YouTube videos free of charge.
Do you have a favorite website for downloading free music for your YouTube videos?