Independent filmmakers are on the rise; more and more individuals are starting to unleash their creativity online by producing their own short videos, and thanks to the rise of social media, their creation can be easily shared and seen by anyone on a video sharing site. However, sites like Youtube has a strict policy towards those who used copyrighted music without permission, so your video may load perfectly on a site, but there will be no audio at the background because of copyright issue.
Royalty free music is something that you can used for your own project, as the companies and individuals have decided to provide them for free, provided that you give the appropriate attribution to their respective owner. Before you proceed, we would like to remind you to read the license on the website as all of them have different attribution requirements. Some of the websites accept donation as part of the maintenance fee, so please consider donating if you plan to use a large amount of them in your project.
freeSFX
Created by the talented Alan McKinney, freeSFX is a website that gathers audio files from professional sound and music individuals and companies from all over the world. All the songs found on this website were all contributed willingly by artists & companies, and it can be used for production of all sort of projects.
Incompetech
A handy search toolbar can be found on this website, which lets you search for music based on the genre, feel or keywords.
ccMixter
Over 1000 tracks that can be used for your commercial project. All music are licensed under Cerative Commons license, so you don’t have to worry about using it for your school projects, videos, podcast, etc. With so many options around, no wonder 1 out of 6 tracks on this website have already been chosen by video makers and podcasters to use on their own project.
Free Public Music
100% original & high quality trendy music and sound effect.
Derek R. Audette
Derek has kindly organized all the music files into one zipped file for download purpose. There are 45 tracks within it, and It comes with 55 bonus royalty free music tracks as well.
Lino Rise
Handmade music by Lino Rise, an independent filmmaker from Germany who decided to provide legal music tracks for commercial project because it’s hard to find such content in his home country as most of them are blocked by the government.
Copyright Free Music
A personal collection of royalty free music by Jacob LaVallee. If you like his taste in music and don’t mind to splash our some monies, check out his portfolio at Audiojungle.
Dano Songs
A variety of music can be found on this website, such as acoustic guitar songs, blues, hip hop, funk, R&B, techno, meditation, jazz, country, and many more. You can choose to use any of the images provided on the homepage if you wish to credit him with an image rather than text.
OP Sound
A website aggregator that offers music released under Creative Commons licenses. A discussion forum is provided so that you may discuss music with fellow artists.
