The engaging ambiance in a YouTube video is vital to expanding your channel and acquiring more subscribers which naturally, leads to more views and earnings. Needless to say, by the ambiance, we mean music! The background music in a YouTube video should fit the general mood of the video and be unobtrusive – just enough to fill up space between you and your viewers and to establish the right atmosphere.
Whether it’s a travel vlog, food or craft tutorial channel, or another beautiful planet in the vast Youtube universe, you need music if you want to appeal to your audiences.
However, we live in a world where nothing is free (or is it? We’ll find out below!) and creators’ efforts must be acknowledged. Respect for others’ creative work is the fundamental principle that makes intellectual trade on the internet possible. And it’s crucial that everyone in the game plays it fair and square. If one decides to go the dishonest way, it’s going to be short-lived. YouTube bots today can smell unlicensed music from miles away.
YouTube Strikes: Why You Might Get One
The only justifiable way to use someone else’s copyrighted work or music without their permission or license is if you’re complying with the fair use guidelines. Doing so makes it possible to reuse someone’s original material in order to create new meaning by commenting, interpreting, educating, informing it, or comparing it with other works. Any other attempt to use music or content that is not yours will most likely end up in getting a Content ID claim or a Copyright strike from the copyright owners.
Copyright is a rather complex subject, so it’s no wonder why a lot of YouTube users are not informed enough about the consequences of using others’ intellectual property in their videos and end up making some critical mistakes.
What Happens When You Get a Copyright Strike?
First things first, a copyright strike (that comes with a copyright takedown) is a serious violation of copyright law. This is different from a Content ID claim, which is simply a warning that you’re using copyrighted material. In that case, there’s a possibility that the owner may prohibit you from using their work or monetizing it by running ads on your video.
When you get a copyright strike though, your video will be taken down and you’ll have to complete the YouTube copyright course where you learn about the rules of copyright. If you get three strikes, YouTube will terminate your account, delete all your videos, and prohibit you from creating another account.
Being banned from YouTube forever doesn’t sound very appealing so let us show you how you can avoid that by using music in your videos legally and respecting others’ intellectual property.
How to legally use music for your video avoiding copyright violations
If you find a song that you want to use in your YouTube video, normally, you’d need to obtain two licenses – a sync license from the publisher and a master license from the record label. You can find out who owns the copyrights for most music on the U.S. Copyright Office website or simply by contacting the artist or their manager. Luckily, today more and more licenses cover both, the sync and the master use rights, tending to the needs of the increasing number of videomakers and video purposes.
Although it seems easy enough to find the copyright owners and request permission to use a song, licensing a popular song usually comes at a steep price. (If you’re not ready to invest thousands of dollars into a single track, we’ll present you with much cheaper and simpler options shortly!)
Be that as it may, if the song you like was made by an indie or beginning artist, there’s always a chance they will allow you to use their music if you give them credit in your video description. Keep in mind though that YouTube bots don’t recognize such information, and you may still get a Content ID claim for using the song even if you were granted permission from the rights holder.
Cheap or even free legal music for YouTube, TV and other commercial projects? You bet it exists!
Revisiting what we said about free things, we have to be grateful that there are artists who are willing to share their works with the rest of the world for free. As we’ll see, there are places and music collections on the internet where you can find great free or budget-friendly music for personal and commercial use.
The most straightforward way to find free music for your YouTube video is to simply go to YouTube Audio Library, where you can find free tracks in many genres and moods, ready to use with one push of a button. The only condition to use this music is to attribute the composer of the piece!
Another great source of copyright-free music is Public Domain music libraries where you can find a variety of tracks by artists who upload their tracks which are royalty-free and available for commercial use with no attribution. These tracks usually don’t cost anything but in some Public Domain libraries, you have the option of purchasing higher quality Wav files or bulks of tracks for a symbolic fee.
Lastly, there are music libraries with free track collections where you can find free high-quality music by professional composers tailored for many purposes, from commercials to vlogs to cinema and TV.
TuneReel is one such place as we have a collection of charming free tunes available for you to use as you please. Not only that, but we also have a rapidly growing catalog with amazing music from great composers based all around the globe – you can license their music trouble-free (we take care of the legal matters for you!) for attractive rates, depending on the nature of your video!
Don’t let licensing and copyright obstacles stop you from adding musical ambiance to your videos. As you learn how simple it can be to find and use music legally, your experience will get easier and easier…and your viewers will benefit!
