Creative Commons is a great place to start your search. If you’re creating videos for your business, you need audio that is cleared for commercial use in derivative works (since using a song in a video is considered derivative under Creative Commons music licensing). Since the process of approaching a copyright holder to secure a license involves far more work, cost, and specialized skills than are reasonable for most social media videos, your best bet is to stick to using audio tracks that are already licensed for your particular type of use. When can you use someone else’s music or audio?īasically, you can only use someone else’s music or other audio if you have written permission from the copyright holder-otherwise known as a license. If someone else created an audio track, they own it, and you can’t use it without permission. So, if you’ve created an original audio track, you own it.

make derivative works based on the copyrighted work.

Like images, audio tracks are covered by section 106 of the Copyright Law in the United States, which specifies that only the copyright holder can: You may not be Beyoncé, but you have the same degree of ownership over the work you create, and the laws that protect Queen Bey protect you and your business, too. It may be a bit of an annoyance when you’re looking for great royalty free music or sound effects to accompany your video, but the same laws that stop you from using the latest top 40 hits as background to your videos also protect the work you create yourself. Since the same basic concepts apply to audio copyright, let’s review: copyright protects creative work, establishing who owns the work and how it can be used.

We’ve talked about copyright on this blog before as it relates to images. No tricks or boring tips-just simple, easy-to-follow instructions that really work.

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Sampling audio from youtube