| Royalty free music is one of the safest kinds | | | | can get away with crawling your website and |
| of music you can use on your website. It's | | | | taking all your copyright material. And |
| designed to be used on websites, in videos | | | | that's only because you want the traffic they |
| and other productions with almost no | | | | can send back to your website in return! |
| restrictions. The only other safe option to | | | | |
| use would be a track that you've written and | | | | Far and away the safest kind of sounds to use |
| performed yourself. | | | | on your website or on your YouTube videos are |
| | | | called "royalty free" or sometimes "stock" or |
| Almost all modern music is copyright. And | | | | "buyout" music. |
| this copyright is enforced ferociously by the | | | | |
| record companies corporate lawyers. Which | | | | The author takes a one-off fee in return for |
| means that if you want to use it on your | | | | you being able to use their work pretty much |
| website, you will have to come to an | | | | anywhere and any way you see fit. Although |
| arrangement with the owner of that copyright | | | | there's usually a restriction to stop you |
| in order to use it - not the easiest thing to | | | | selling it unaltered - you normally have to |
| do as you have to track them down and then | | | | modify it in some way. So it's fine to use |
| find out who handles this kind of copyright | | | | the track behind your YouTube videos but you |
| issue. Either that or be prepared for a | | | | wouldn't be allowed to sell a CD with simply |
| "cease and desist" letter from their lawyer | | | | the royalty free music on it. Which is fair |
| along with a demand for unpaid royalties. The | | | | enough, otherwise the author would never get |
| "unpaid royalties" figure will be their best | | | | any money. |
| guess of what you are likely to owe and you | | | | |
| can be certain that it won't be an | | | | Once you've bought a track or CD in this |
| underestimate - it will be up to you to prove | | | | manner, you can add it to your website and |
| any lower amount, Not the nicest thing to | | | | still be able to sleep at night. You can also |
| have happen to you. | | | | use it to add variety to your YouTube videos, |
| | | | or in an amateur dramatic production, your |
| It's a common misconception that if something | | | | own movie, CDs and DVDs you produce, and |
| is available on the internet, it's OK to use | | | | anything else you can think of. |
| it on your website. People think this about | | | | |
| pictures as well as music. But that's not | | | | There are all sorts of different tracks |
| true - everything published is automatically | | | | available from new age through to R'n'B, Hip |
| copyright unless the author specifically says | | | | Hop, jazz, country and any other musical |
| otherwise - this happens nowadays mainly with | | | | genre you care to name. So you're bound to be |
| open source software and even then there's | | | | able to get hold of something that fits the |
| usually some kind of agreement (often called | | | | mood you want to recreate. |
| copyleft). Only search engines like Google | | | | |