Best Royalty Free Music Sites 2020

If you’re looking for the best sites to get copyright-free and royalty-free music that you can add to your YouTube or Facebook Live videos, I’m covering them in this video. Plus I’m breaking down the rules of these sites to help you stay informed and copyright strike free.

Attribution: Me Again by John Newman here: https://JohnNewman.lnk.to/LoveMeAgain

🕒 Timestamps:🕒

2:00 The biggest mistake you can make with music on your videos
4:21 YouTube Audio Library
6:37 Facebook Sound Collection
8:37 Lickd
13:56 Epidemic sound
16:26 Canva + Epidemic sound
18:39 Artlist

🌟Resources mentioned🌟

Free copyright free and royalty-free music:
YouTube Audio Library: https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/
Facebook Sound Collection: https://www.facebook.com/sound

🎥Related videos🎥

How to legally play music on Facebook live (Copyrighted music on Facebook the low down) https://youtu.be/O8g1SAKIK_4

Best Royalty Free Music Sites 2020 – Vide transcript

So in today’s video, we are talking about what are some of the best royalty-free music sites that you can use so that you can add music to your YouTube videos or your Facebook videos, whether you’re looking to live stream, we had a bit of a jam session.

There was a way before we started, there was a, there is a specific way that you need to be aware of using music, and we’re going to talk about the different options today and we’re going to, yeah, just really cover, I guess, the mystify music.

I did a live stream or it feels so like a little while ago with Dean Reynolds, who’s a music coach and he talked a lot about copyright strikes, copyright claim, but this, this particular video, it will be all be about the music sites that you can actually use.

So, looking a bit weird on my feed. No, we’re good. We’re good. So YouTube just threw me there. We’re good. So, let’s get right into it. So for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Sara Nguyen, and I help coaches consultants and creative pros build their business using video with ease and I live stream about live streaming.

I have a lot of fun here doing it as well. So if you haven’t already make sure that you go back and check out the links in the description, because I’m going to put the links to everything that we talk about in this live stream and any resources as well.

So they’re all there for you to reference, and I’ll also go back and put the timestamps. So if you want to go back and check out a particular thing, it will be in the description there for you.

So, let’s get right into it. Super, super excited. So I wanted to first talk about music. So if you were lucky enough to jam along, adding music to your video, whether that’s at the beginning and you have some music with the countdown, or if you’re adding music throughout as background music to your video, it’s a nice thing to do, but you need to be really intentional with the music that you’re using because music is a little bit complicated.

And it’s complicated because it’s other people’s work and there is copyright involved. And what I don’t want for you to, I don’t want to happen to you is for you to create a video where you haven’t been aware of the music that you’re using, whether it’s just random music in the background ’cause you’re outdoors, or if it’s music that you thought you could use, but you can’t.

I don’t want for you to go through that and create that video only to have the video, you know, be taken down or the video not to work because you haven’t been intentional or you haven’t been aware of the music that you’re actually using.

Now, it’s no longer acceptable to say, well, I didn’t know. So there’s this great quote where it’s like, lack of knowledge is not a privilege. It’s no longer okay to say, well, I wasn’t aware I was breaking the law.

I wasn’t aware that, you know, I had to pay child support. I wasn’t aware– like that’s no longer an excuse. You need to be aware, particularly if you’re creating videos for business, you’re creating videos as a creator on YouTube or you’re creating videos, you know, have an ultimately a commercial intent at the end of the day.

So I’m going to go through some music sites and we’re really going to break it down so that you kind of understand how you can use the music from these sites. And I’ve got a couple of really, really exciting options. So you saw that, that I had some music in the intro.

I’m going to talk about how I, where that came from and how you can use it. So let’s go over to, well, yeah, I talked about the biggest mistakes about not being intentional and having your video taken down, but let’s talk about some options that you can actually use.

And I’m not just going to talk about them. I’m going to show you as well because I believe things are more effective when I show you as opposed to doing this interpretive dance with my hands.

So I’m going to go over to my iMac. Now, let me just sort myself out here. Okay. So here is one of the first options that I recommend for getting music on your videos. And this is the YouTube studio and the audio library that you can use with your YouTube videos.

Now, if you go into your YouTube channel on the left-hand side, if you scroll, you’ll see audio library. And there’s all of these, I’m just going to move myself ’cause I’m blocking all of the good stuff.

You’ll see that there are all of these different options for music, and then you can click on the top. You can filter by genre, by mood, by artist’s name, by attribute, by duration.

And there are all these different tracks that you can use. Now, here is the catch. Okay? And there’s a catch and I know that you all do this, but in the terms and conditions, if you read the terms and conditions, because I’m sure that you all do that, you can use this music for free for any of your YouTube videos.

So they’re okay with that, but you can not use this music to add to your Facebook videos. You can not use this music to add to your Instagram videos. It’s only free and available for you to use for YouTube music only.

I got caught out with this. I was using this music for multi streams. I didn’t even think about it. So this is where it is your responsibility to read the terms and conditions and to understand what you can and you can’t do.

So I was using YouTube’s audio library music for my Facebook live stream and YouTube live stream. I thought it’s just one video, but no, it’s not. It’s on two different platforms. It’s technically two different videos.

So you’re not allowed to do that. So don’t do what I did. And I’ve stopped doing that now. So, Facebook we’re friends again. So you can definitely use the YouTube music for your YouTube videos, but you can’t, you can’t use it on any other platform.

And they also say you can’t do anything dodgy with it or illegal, but that’s just given. But I guess we live in a world where that has to be called out.

So that’s the first free option for getting music with the caveat that you have to use it for YouTube only. You can’t use it for other platforms. The second option that I want to go through is Facebook, Facebook’s option.

So Facebook has their own music option as well, and they call it the Sound Collection. Like they’re trying to be like this cool, you know, jazz club. This is the Sound Collection from Facebook.

And the sound collection is available if you go into Facebook and into Creator Studio. So the URL is business.facebook.com/creatorstudio or you can access that from your page. And on the left-hand side, hidden underneath creative tools is Sound Collection.

And there are all these tracks as well. Slide, they’re different to the ones that you get from YouTube, obviously. And then you can filter by genre, you can filter by mood, there are even ones with vocals.

And they there’s currently 7,000 over 7,000 tracks, which is a lot of tracks. So these are ones that you can access once again for free. The catch is, and people don’t read terms and conditions, the catch is once again, with the Facebook sound collection, you can only use this for Facebook, right?

So you can’t take Facebook’s music and use it on YouTube. You can’t take it and use it on Twitch or you can’t take it and you can’t use it on any other social media platform that is not Facebook-specific.

I don’t know about Instagram. I couldn’t tell from these terms and conditions so I’m not going to comment about that, but just keep in mind that if you do want to use this music that it’s only available for Facebook, if you choose to use it.

So let’s talk about, so we talked about the free option that you get from YouTube. And we talked about the option that you get from Facebook. Let’s talk about some paid options now. I’m really excited to talk about these ones.

So first of all, I’m just going to the first paid option that I want to talk about is a new one that a new player to the music market. And these guys are lit and I’m really pumped about these guys. So Lickd.

They are a music surface where you can get known artists and known as in like Noel Gallagher, like the Noel Gallagher from Oasis, you know Wonderwall Oasis? Like he’s got tracks on there that you can use.

I’m going to play a track by this dude here, like really well-known artists. And it’s not as expensive as you may think it is.

So when I went into Lickd, I was like, they pitched themselves as you know, these are known artist and I’m like, are they really from known labels? This is the, an example of Noel Gallagher’s tracks.

So these are the tracks that you can access, right? And then you can download them and use them on your YouTube videos, on your Facebook videos without a copyright strike and without getting in trouble.

Now you may be saying Dino Gallagher from Oasis? How much would that cost? Wouldn’t that cost you a fortune? And this is how Lickd currently prices their service. It’s based on the average views that you get per video.

So you need to, you can do this for free. So the link is in the description to sign up for Lickd, you can sign up for free so you can see how much it would cost you and you need to connect your channel.

And that’s really important for them to help you manage, you know, if you get any copyright claims, they can help sort that out. And then it’s based on per the average views per video, which automatically calculates a year.

You need to bust out your calculator on your iPhone and try to figure that out. It’s all, yeah, it’s all worked out for you, but you know, you can get a song for $8. Like if you’re a smaller channel, when I connected my one at the time of this recording, it’s costing me $8 to download per song.

And then the more views you get, the more cost per song. The rules with this is that it is one, one, one license, so I would pay $8 per song per video. So if I wanted to multistream, I would have to buy two licenses ’cause technically they’re two videos.

So be careful if you’re multi-streaming like me, that’s where you may get caught out. And really cool. So it’s also up to you once again, to read the terms and conditions for each song, right?

So the onus is on you, but this is like how they structure their pricing at the time of this recording. They’ve got really well-defined terms and conditions. So after I purchased this song, which I’m going to play for you now.

That was a couple of seconds just to flex a little bit. So after I purchased this song, what you get, so I purchased John Newman’s Love Me Again, which was like, my God, I’m playing John Newman on my live stream.

So what you get is you get this end-user agreement and this breaks down exactly what you can and can’t do. The platforms that you’re allowed to use it on.

And this, if you get in trouble or not in trouble, but if you get a copyright claim like this is the license that you can send to, you know, whoever to, to dispute the claim because it has your license number, it has the license ID, it has the rules on what you can and can’t do.

This is why it’s important to read, right? So there are restrictions. I can’t use this song for anything related to tobacco, politics, firearms, pornography, like, you know, can’t use it in my pornos, and just tells you what you can and can’t do. Really detailed, really great service.

The thing with Lickd is that they’re too quite new, right? So their pitch at the moment is they want to bring more commercial music, more record labels, more known music, you know, music that you hear in the movies, music that you hear on the radio.

They want to bring that to YouTube creators, but in order for them to make that happen, they need for us creators to get on board and to use the service so that they can use that as leverage with the record company to say, “yo, these creators are using it, give us access to the music and we can make something fair for everyone”.

So I think that’s pretty cool that you can access like Noel Gallagher, the Noel Gallagher from Oasis’ music for like, you know, around starting at $8 per video. Like that’s pretty cool.

Now, a couple of questions is, what happens with Lickd if you, you know, what happens after you have the license and they no longer, let’s just say use the artists, they no longer have that license? Well, Lickd said that you get the rights to use that for that video in perpetuity.

So even if Lickd goes under, knock on wood, we’re knocking on wood, that that doesn’t happen, like you still have the rights to use that for life. So that’s pretty cool. So you’re covered for perpetuity.

So that’s pretty exciting. So the next one that I want to talk about is, let’s go back to the screen. So the next one that I want to talk about is Epidemic Sound.

So if you were lucky enough to be jamming at the, with the countdown timer, I was using music from Epidemic Sound for that. So what’s Epidemic Sound?

How do they work? So they are another music subscription service, and they give you lots of tracks that you can access as well. And they are subscription-based. So YouTube and Facebook are free. Lickd is a per song per video fee based on the views that you have.

Epidemic Sound is they have a monthly subscription. I think you can pay monthly or yearly, and then you can kind of download the music and you’re covered for that time. I like Epidemic Sound because you get a lot of tracks.

They’ve got quality music. The thing with Epidemic Sound, and I wanna go back on the camera. So with Epidemic Sound, it is a subscription.

So what happens with your protection if you don’t continue to have a subscription? So here’s how it works. So let’s just say you’ve got a subscription with them in February, right?

And then you’ve downloaded music for a YouTube video, Facebook video, whatever platform it is. They currently cover YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, and podcast. So you’ve downloaded a music for use on YouTube.

And then in March, you no longer have a subscription with them. What happens to your coverage? I guess for that video that you’ve used the music for what happens is if you download it in February, you used it for a video in February, and then in March, you’re no longer with them you are actually still covered, right?

So you’re not covered if you use that same song in April, but you’re still covered for the lifetime of the February time because you purchased the license for that use and that’s in perpetuity.

So that, that, I just wanted to clarify that, ’cause I was like, well, what happens if I’m no longer a, you know, subscribed to their service?

Do like, does my, do I have to take down my videos? And no, you don’t, you’re still covered because you had a license at the time when you use that song, but you can’t use it for new projects.

You can’t use the same song for new projects. So that’s some clarity on that. So that, that made me feel a little bit better. ‘Cause I was like, well then I’m just stuck with these people for life? Like what if I can’t afford it? And like I’m bankrupted?

Anyway, I digress. So they’re a great service. The thing that you may not be aware about with Epidemic Sound is they’ve got really amazing tracks. And the thing that I really love about them is if, you know, if you’ve been on some videos on my channel, you know, I’m a big fan of Canva. You may be thinking why should bring up Canva?

This is like a music thing, girl. Well, I’m bringing up Canva because you can actually access Epidemic Sound via Canva. Like what are you talking about? So let’s go back over to my screen now.

So in the, in the beginning, at the beginning of this live stream, I’ll cut it out for the replay. So clearly you have to come live to see all these fun things. I had this video that played and it had music. So this is the video lagging a little bit.

And the video has music because Canva, they’ve got access to this, they give you access to a library of music. Guess where that music comes from? Epidemic Sound.

They told me this themselves, ’cause I asked them like, how do you avoid copyright strikes if you’re downloading, creating these videos and you’re adding these music tracks and you want to use it on your YouTube video.

And Canva said they use Epidemic Sound as the music supplier for the music that you get within Canva. How cool is that? And you avoid a copyright strike when you go to download the actual file.

So if you go to download as a video they will tell you to connect your account, and then you can connect your YouTube account. And that protects you in terms of, you know, connecting the ID, your channel ID with the music. How cool is that?

So you know that now if you have watched this video, I was not aware of that. And the music option is only available in Canva Pro, but I’ve got a link to a 30-day trial.

I think they’re extending it to 45 days. So grab that link to the Canva trial, if you haven’t got it already, so you can check this option out.

So that’s pretty cool. Okay. So the fourth, but definitely not the final option that I want to talk about in terms of music before we go to some comments is Artlist. Okay.

So Artlist, have the pricing there, ’cause I was all excited, is another music service that you can use. Artlist operates differently to Epidemic Sound in the sense that if you go to their pricing, I’ll make this bigger because I’m getting blinder in my old age, with Artlist you’ve got access to once again, a whole library of music.

You’ve also got sound effects as well. So they bill annually which they kind of position it as monthly, but you actually get billed in one bill. You can’t pay monthly. It is actually a yearly bill. And those are the rates that you see on the screen.

Now, the thing with Artlist to keep in mind and I’ve written this on my little notes, is that, so let’s just say, we’re going back to this subscription model again, you can use their tracks and you can download them, you know, go crazy.

I think they have like a 40 a day download limit. So you download 40 tracks a day for the whole life of your subscription. What happens after you, what happens if you end that subscription?

You’ll still get the rights to use that music forever for perpetuity. So that’s really cool. So they’re a bit more expensive ’cause you have to pay for them upfront, but if you’re using a lot of music, they’re a great option to use.

All of these options are really great ones. I wouldn’t talk about them otherwise. So that essentially is the breakdown for Artlist. Now, you know, with all of them, they’ve usually got free trials.

So you can go in and see if they’ve got tracks that you like. I found that all of them have such a large range of, I’m going back on camera now, they have such a large range of music in all sorts of genres.

The one that has a lot, but could do with a little bit more, I find is Lickd, but they’re still quite new. So I think they’re like, I’m really, really new. Like they’re maybe, I’m making this up now, I feel like they are only a couple of years old, whereas these other ones have been around for a lot longer.

But I’m excited to see what Lickd can bring because commercial music in your live stream so that it will help you stand out a lot more as opposed to having, you know, unknown music, but there’s nothing wrong with unknown music as well.

It’s all about the vibes that you actually bring to your video through music. So super, super excited. Now, that essentially wraps up the options that I’m talking about today. So we covered quite a few things.

So we covered, what you shouldn’t do. So how you need to be really intentional with the music, and really aware of music if you’re going to use it in your videos, whether that’s live streams or uploads because there are all sorts of copyright issues that I don’t want you to get into.

So be aware, read those terms and conditions. I showed you how to access music from YouTube studio, Facebook Creator Studio, which you can access for free. And then we talked about some paid options being Lickd, which is a really interesting one that I’m watching, where you can pay per song and then known artists like the Noel Gallagher.

I can’t get over it. The Noel Gallagher from Oasis, like Wonderwall Oasis. You can pay per song. And it’s based on the number of views that your channel gets. We talked about Epidemic Sound, so they’re another subscription service and you can actually access them as part of your Canva account as well, really amazing songs.

And then Artlist, there’s the option as well. So thank you so much, everyone, for joining me. If there are any other music sites that you think I’ve missed drop it in the comments, let me know, I’ll check it out, but these are the ones I think for 2020, that I find great to use, a massive range of sounds that you can add all sorts of feelings and ambience and vibes to your live streams. Thanks so much for joining me. Let’s see.

Yes. Pete says, “YouTube audio library for the win!” hey, Pete! I’m definitely a fan of that. Just make sure that you don’t do what I do and break the rules and use it across multiple platforms ’cause you will get in trouble for that.

So I’m super excited, super, super excited. So that essentially wraps up today’s live stream. Now, if you found this video useful as always give me a thumbs up and don’t forget to subscribe to my channel, if you haven’t already, I live stream about living, about living.

I live stream about live streaming. I do a lot of social media tutorials. I do a lot of tech tutorials and I have a lot of fun. So subscribe, if you haven’t already to join me on the next video. And if you’re looking to get into video, highly recommend you check out my Facebook Live Cheat Sheets.

It’s a super simple guide to get you up and running on Facebook live, even if you’ve never hit record before. So I’ll put a link to that in the description as well as on the screen somewhere.

Thanks, everyone for joining me. And I will see you in the next broadcast, bye for now.

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