Good places to find royalty free music?

J

jonE5

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Any good places to find royalty free music?

Is it ok to use tiny bits of regular songs (not top chart kinda stuff), if you dont use any lyrical parts etc...?

Also if its a non-profit short?
 
jonE5 said:
Any good places to find royalty free music?
Click to expand...

Plenty... but royalty-free and free are not the same thing. There are buyout libraries that you can find, some more expensive than others, that come with licensing agreements and have no needle-drop charges. There are also websites where you can purchase tracks piecemeal, and even stock footage sites like Pond5 are getting into that game. There are some free sites as well: Kevin MacLeod has a free music directory, asking only that he is credited for the music.

jonE5 said:
Is it ok to use tiny bits of regular songs (not top chart kinda stuff), if you dont use any lyrical parts etc...?
Click to expand...

It's not just the lyrics that are copyrighted. There are three elements that are copyrighted: the lyrics, the music, and the actual recording.

jonE5 said:
Also if its a non-profit short?
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter. Copyright infringement is copyright infringement whether you're making money from it or not.
 
try to find stuff released under a creative commons license. You can use that stuff all you want, as long as you don't modify or make money off of it. I use Kevin Mcleod's stuff as much as I can.

If you have a specific song you absolutely feel you must have, you can always contact the artist and just ask them. I knew some guys that made a low budget horror movie several years ago that wanted to use "Mr. Brightside" by the killers, and they asked the band, and the band said yes. Worst they can do is say no.
 
If you do a search I posted a list of free to very cheap music you can use.
And to second C2V, there is no way around copyright. It makes no difference if you make a pile off your film or your doing in for a non profit annual report. Also there is no "if I only use..." clause. That is a myth. As I liked to point out to students the BEATLES lost on nine notes, and they had very good lawyers.


If you can't find my list I can give you a link.
 
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