This is the video I made showing how easy it is to listen to samples, buy and download royalty free music from libraries on the Internet.

My apologies for my croaky voice, I hope you can still understand what I am saying (if you want to know why I’m sounding this way please read my new blog IM Geek Girl).

It really is that simple, and many of the sites have short pieces of music you can buy (15/30/60 second spots) so you don’t even need to edit. Of course, the piece of music I have bought is much longer and I only need a fraction of it, but I can easily fade it out without having to do much editing.

Many people hear the word “free” and think that’s exactly what royalty free music is. Actually, many people still believe that any music they get online is free. The truth is that all website content, whether audio, video or written is copyrighted and can only be used if the creator has given their permission. In the case of music and sound effects, some audio is given a creative commons licence by its composer, in which case you can use it (although they normally specify it can only be used on non-commercial projects).

What royalty free music really means is that once you have purchased the music you do not have to pay a new fee every time you use it. There are no further royalty costs to pay.

Some music production companies will create CDs of music and send them to audio production studios for free, but every time a music track, or part of a track, is used they have to be paid a music licensing fee.

Similarly, if you want to use a piece of your favorite music on something – say you’d like a bit of Coldplay on your website or podcast – you have to contact the publishers and find out if you can use it and what the royalty fee is (and don’t be surprised if it costs you hundreds or even thousands of dollars and comes with some tight restrictions).

What are your Options with Royalty Free Music?

There are many royalty free music libraries online. They offer a number of different options depending on your usage:

• Pay per track: this is the ideal solution if you want to use music tracks occasionally or you want a variety of very different tracks. This is my preferred method and I tend to use ProductionTrax for the majority of my music

• Pay per album: most royalty free music libraries also offer a number of music collections i.e. a number of tracks that you purchase as an album. They are usually grouped by style or composer. For example, if you are using a lot of cinematic type themes you can usually buy a collection of them. This can be especially useful if you only want short tracks, as many libraries offer collections of 30second or 60second spots that provide variety for a number of different projects.

• Subscription: ideal if you are using a lot of music (and sound effects). Some libraries work on a monthly subscription basis, allowing you to use any of their tracks through your subscription.

When purchasing your royalty free music online you usually download the tracks directly from the website (in wav or mp3 format), but most sites also offer the option of paying an extra fee to receive the tracks on a CD or in a different format.

Be sure to check the usage options of the tracks. Just because they are royalty free does not mean they can be used indiscriminately. Often the cost is higher for a music track that is going to be used for commercial purposes as opposed to educational or non-profit.

Now that I have explained the concept of royalty free music (and hopefully made it clearer rather than confusing the issue) I’ll show you how I chose the music for the podcast intro in my next post.