
Pros

- Of course… it’s free.
- Usually, it’s easy to find.
- Perfect for using it on personal projects.
Cons

- You will not be able to use it in professional projects.
- You will have to attribute the author -mention it- somewhere.
- Every webpage and every song are under different free licenses. You must read and understand what they mean, one by one.
- The free license can change at any given moment by the author to become a paid license.
- The Youtube algorithm, called Content ID, can detect that you don’t have the rights to use that music.
- You will not be able to monetize your video or product that has the music.
The world of Royalty-Free music on the Internet is complex, as there are a wide variety of types of licenses and it is not always clear to which we should stick to.
Index
Some concepts that you need to know before downloading free-music
- What does copyright mean?
Royalty-Free Music primarily refers to a type of music license that allows the buyer to pay the corresponding license only once and use the music for as long as desired in a single final product or video.
- Music under Public Domain
Music under ‘Public Domain’ consists of all works that are not protected by copyright and which can, therefore, be used without permission or without having to pay to the original author.
- Music under Creative Commons Licenses
Here is the author himself who establishes the limitations for the reproduction, distribution, diffusion and copy of his work.

Take into consideration before downloading a song!
This means that most of the time we will have to attribute -mention- the artist. Attribution means that you have to explain in the video description -or inside the project- who’s the author of the music.
Odyssey Drums from Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) is subject to a Creative Commons Attribution license (Creative Commons – Attribution 4.0 International – CC BY 4.0)
That said, it’s very important to read carefully all the legal terms (there are different Creative Commons licenses and each one has his own different terms) and legal advice of the web page from which you’re downloading the music.
Pages to download royalty-free music
The best sources for high-quality free Royalty-free music on the Internet are:
- Legis Music: Since recently, we offer all our music completely free of charge for your personal projects and social networks. In exchange, you must link to our website or mention us in your publications, but you make sure you will never receive a copyright claim in the future.
- Youtube Audio Library: Within its audio library has both music and sound effects of all genres, 100% free. Probably we would have to attribute the author. More information on how to do that below.
- Premiumbeat Free Music: You’ll find incredible quality among the tracks that Premiumbeat offers as well for free, classified by genres, mood, duration, BPM, instruments… an amazing resource.
- Mixkit: Completely free website for video creators. They have a library of awesome Stock Music, Stock Video Clips and Premiere Pro Templates as well.
- Free Music Archive (FMA): Free songs under Creative Commons license. To use them, we should mention the artist in our project.
- Bensound: Over 70 songs ready to download. The use is limited to personal projects, if we want to put their music on professional ones or on Youtube we will have to purchase a license.
- Incompetech: Royalty-Free Music. Creative Commons licensing by attribution is free (attribution MUST be given to make this legal), but they do suggest a $5 donation as a kindness. If not, we can buy the music for $30 each.
- NewGrounds: Experimental sounds and songs for video games. Enter here only if you didn’t find what you’re searching for, they have good music.
- Soundcloud: In between the millions of songs that there are on Soundcloud, there are some that are available for free use. You will distinguish them because there’s an option to download it legally.
- Audionautix: Well classified between genres and moods, there are hundreds of songs on mp3 format for their immediate download.
- Musopen: On this web page you’ll find royalty-free classical music classified by the composer, from Bach to Beethoven.
Click on any of these links to download songs that can be used in your personal projects without a problem.
I don’t want to risk my project or I don’t want to attribute the artist. What should I do?
Imagine that you are making a video or audiovisual project. Maybe you’re in one of those situations:
- You want to use royalty-free music but you don’t want to mention the artist.
- You want to use the song on a Youtube video and monetize this video.
- You want to use the song in a professional project, like a corporate presentation, a movie or a broadcast advertisement.
In any of these cases, it is best to purchase a paid license.

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Conclusion
Yes, downloading free background music is oftentimes easier and more convenient.