From the time since YouTube has gone strict with it’s licenses and media usage for YouTubers, it has become necessary to use Royalty free music or media in your videos if you want to monetize them on YouTube. If you use a media which is a copyright of someone else in your YouTube video, YouTube will track it down and may reject your video to be monetized..

Royalty free music for YouTube

You might have gone through this: YouTube engine detects the copyright media on monetized videos, and if it finds the copyright owner in the YouTube partner program publisher list, it starts showing the ads of that copyright owner of the media, and not of the video owner. So, if you monetize with YouTube, you have to make sure that the media you’re going to use in your videos, such as background music and other audio are royalty free in nature.

What can be used as the Royalty free Music for YouTube?

Any music that is available under the following conditions can be used in monetized YouTube videos.

  • Public domain: Any thing that lies under Public domain is free to copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.
  • Creative Commons license provided with it’s availability to be used commercially

Where can I find Royalty free music for YouTube?

Well, I’m not saying that I know the largest resource of free Royalty free music that can satisfy all your demands, but I have some cool links that may come in handy for YouTubers who want free music under Public domain for their videos.

List of Public domain music resources

  1. BlogPhilo: Some free background tracks with a variety of musical categories from ambient, jazz, orchestra to drums, bass etc.
  2. Musopen: Huge “warehouse” of sheet music available in Public domain. Check out their Shuffle feature for random musical compositions.
  3. Smart Sound Free music: Besides premium music, they give some free music as well, but you have to subscribe to their mailing list for that.
  4. PublicDomain4u: Great resource to royalty free old music.
  5. Open Music Archive: Has a large number of categories like instrumental, free-to-air, blues, female vocal, male vocal, piano, vocal, guitar, solo, banjo, group etc. with date and artist-based browsing.
  6. FreePD: Another good resource for old as well as urban music with a lots of categories.
  7. PDMusic: Simply the old music under Public domain in MIDI format.
  8. Sound Jay: House of a large number of sound effects and tracks to be used as background scores.
  9. Soungle: A search based browsing system for copyright free sounds.
  10. Wikipedia Sound List: A list on Wikipedia consisting a number of sound tracks under public domain (as well as CC BY).
  11. IMSLP: Music library that provides music under Public domain in a search-based manner.
  12. Piano Public Domain: As the name suggests, this site provides free Piano sheet music under Public domain.
  13. PDInfo: You can get some collections of copyright free music on PDInfo.
  14. ChoralWiki: Another music library for free music with no copyrights.
  15. Jazz Anthology: If you love old Jz music, then Jazz Anthology is a fantastic resource for jazz tunes of 1930’s and 1940’s. Search or browse through their playlists to find out your best vintage Jazz there.
  16. Digital History: A big History resource, also provides some old vintage music available in public domain ranging from old Jazz, Sentimental, Patriot, Ragtime and music from different stages and ages in the 19th and the 20th century.
  17. Audio Sound Clips: A collection of Royalty free music with no copyrights by Audio Sound Clips.

Resources for Royalty free music under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) License

The following sites also provide some music under Public domain, but most of their music is available under CC BY.

If you’re not satisfied with these free resources for Royalty free music, you may choose the premium way to get more. I recommend Audio Jungle for a variety of quality premium Royalty free music. Hope you enjoyed the post. Share it with your friends on YouTube.