Music has a power all of its own – elevating a story, a scene, an explainer or vlog beyond just words and images. It can give you background atmosphere, or emotion, it can position your brand, connect with a target audience and helps them to stay engaged. In short, music for videos is a vital component if you’re a creator or a business. We’re here to tell you everything you need to know about how to license a song for a video.
How Do I Get Permission to Use a Song in a Video?
No-one wants to work hard putting together a great short film or web-based promo and then have it taken down from YouTube or another platform because of audio copyright issues. So if you’re a professional content creator, producer or editor, here’s how to avoid running into problems.
Unless you’ve written the song yourself, in which case you own the rights, when it comes to how to use music in videos legally, we’re talking about music licensing.
How to Obtain Permission to Use Copyrighted Music
For nearly all music, the publisher and/or a record label hold the music rights, so you have to get permission from both. You’ll get what’s called a synchronisation (or sync) licence from the publisher or composer; assuming an artist has a contract with a record label, you’d acquire a master licence from them.
Negotiating the licence deals, most often you’ll either be paying a small sum every time your video plays (pay-per-use), or purchasing a licence that allows you unlimited use for a given amount of time. It’s up to you which you want to go for; once you’ve agreed a price, then you can stream, broadcast, post and share your videos.
How to get permission to use a song on YouTube? If the song’s by a relatively unknown artist, or on a small record label, you could potentially reach out to them directly. Want a huge song by a major artist? It’s going to cost money. A lot of money – and they might not grant you a licence to use it.
The easiest, quickest and often most cost-effective way to license tracks is to use sites which specialise in selling music licences for video production. Which is where Audio Network comes in.
All of the Choice, None of the Hassle
Audio Network has over 250,000 original tracks – composed and created by a hugely talented roster of artists, composers and producers worldwide. We record our music in some of the world’s best-known studios and there are scores of genres to choose from. Not only that, but we create dedicated collections, such as hip hop, the Hollywood Sound and the Holidays, as well as hand-picked playlists to make choosing music even easier. Need FX or beds for voiceovers? We have hundreds of them. Want more flexibility with stems? Nearly all our tracks have those too.
Whether you’re looking for intros or outros, background music or a track for a brand ID, we have the sound that suits.
Finding Your Perfect Music
First off, you need to choose which of our Search functions you want to use: Musical Styles, Mood/Emotion, Instrumentation or Production Genre. You can listen to our latest releases – we have new albums every fortnight. Or discover music organised around themes and genres with our playlists such as Business & Brands, Epic Gaming, Fashion & Beauty or find out what’s Trending On…
You can filter to narrow down your options further – by mood, such as anticipation or determination, romantic and reflective, or tension-filled. You can also filter by genres including everything from dance to drum ‘n’ bass, indie to hybrid orchestral.
Want to get more specific? Try our new Prompt Search feature, which harnesses the power of AI to find your ideal sounds. Simply put in a description of your content, a scene or the emotions you want your audience to feel, and you’ll get a playlist full of options within seconds.
Or you can use our Audio Search to find a track that sounds like something you’ve heard on YouTube, Spotify, TikTok or SoundCloud.
For more on adding tracks to your projects, watch our easy explainer:
So, now you know all about music licensing for videos, it’s time to start discovering the best original music for your content! Still stuck? Why not contact one of our team and send us a music brief? And to find out why using the best music can make you more money, read our deep dive into unlocking Music Licensing’s ROI.
Need Music for Your Project?
At Audio Network we create original music, of the highest quality, for broadcasters, brands, creators, agencies and music fans everywhere. Through clear and simple licensing, we can offer you a huge variety of the best quality music across every conceivable mood and genre. Find out how we can connect you with the perfect collaborator today by clicking the button below!
