Not every brand has the budget for their own composer, let alone how much Lady Gaga charges for collaborating with cookies. Luckily, you can record (no pun intended) the perfect soundtrack for your next video for free using Creative Commons free music.
As with free stock photos and free stock videos, you can browse Creative Commons music libraries to find exactly what you need. And we’ve made it even easier by collecting the top 15 sources below.
What is Creative Commons Music?
Let’s start with a definition: Creative Commons is a company that issues special licenses to the public that allow creative content (such as music) to be used for free. Over two billion creative works, including videos, photos, music and more, are licensed under Creative Commons.
There are different types of Creative Commons licenses that govern how a work can be used. As long as you comply with the terms of the license, you may use the work for free.
However, the key follows the license. If you don’t, you may be forced to remove the video or even face legal consequences for copyright infringement.
You will most likely want to look for public domain material that will be marked CC0, which is entirely in the public domain. This means that you can remix or change a track, use it on any platform, and share it without attribution.
There are also six types of Creative Commons licenses, three of which allow commercial use with attribution.
- CC-BY: This license also allows you to use the music however you like, on any platform and in any medium. However, you must give credit to the creator and provide a link to the original license (for example, by adding this information to the video caption).
- CC-BY-SA: This license also requires you to credit the creator. Also, if you remix or change a track in any way, you also need to make it available under the same type of license.
- CC-BY-ND: This license requires you to credit the creator. However, you cannot change the material in any way.
Other types of licenses (CC-BY-NC, CC-BY-NC-SA, and CC-BY-NC-ND) are for non-commercial use only, which means they are not available to brands.
Why Use Creative Commons Music?
Video is more important than ever as TikTok could become the most important social media marketing platform in 2022. What is video without sound? Like a burger without fries, it feels incomplete.
It’s more than just a vibe. TikTok found that 88% of users reported that sound is essential to their browsing experience, and that campaigns with sound were more than twice as effective as those without.
But getting licensed music or creating new music for your videos can be expensive. Creative Commons music is free and legal, as long as you list it correctly.
How to list creative commons music
Any license other than CC0 requires attribution. And even if you’re using a work that’s in the public domain, it’s a good idea to credit the author. Therefore, learning to list music under Creative Commons is useful, even if you only plan to use public domain works.
Creative Commons has created a handy guide and recommends a four-part format: Title, Creator, Source, and License.
- Title: The title of the track or song.
- Creator: The name of the artist, ideally with a link to their website or creator’s profile.
- Source: A link to where you originally found the music.
- License: Specify the type of license (for example, CC-BY) with a link to the original license.
You can find detailed examples on their wiki.
Now that you’ve become a copyright expert, let’s find some creative shared music for you!
15 Websites to Find Free Creative Commons Music
dig.ccMixter
This is the index of ccMixter, an online remix sharing platform. All of the music on the site is Creative Commons licensed (that’s what the “cc”stands for), making it the perfect place to explore.
You can also use ccMixter to view tracks, but there is no easy way to filter by license type. The advantage of going directly to dig.ccMixter is that they already sorted the tracks into categories, including free music for commercial projects. There are over 4200 to choose from.
The search bar allows you to find tracks by keyword or filter by genre, instrument, and style. Funny!
As a reminder, all of these free tracks are CC-BY licensed, so they require an artist credit.
ccTrax
Another Creative Commons music site, ccTrax is a curated collection focusing on electronic genres such as techno and house music.
You can filter tracks by license type, genre, and tags like “cinematic”or “shoegaze”.
ccTrax also has an organized collection of tracks licensed under CC-BY.
soundcloud
SoundCloud is an online music sharing site with over 175 million users worldwide and over 200 million tracks. This number includes many tracks that are in the public domain or under a Creative Commons license. As a bonus, SoundCloud is very easy to navigate and learn.
There are many ways to find Creative Commons tracks on SoundCloud, but here are three of the easiest:
- Subscribe to Creative Commons who has a SoundCloud profile with Creative Commons music.
- Enter the license type (eg “CC0”) you are looking for in the search bar.
- Use the search bar to find specific sounds or moods, then filter the results to suit your needs. This is the best method if you want to find a specific mood or feeling.
Group camp
Like SoundCloud, Bandcamp is a music distribution site where artists can share their work. And although Bandcamp was founded to pay artists for their work, there is a decent amount of tracks licensed by Creative Commons.
You can search for music tagged with Creative Commons, though it’s not as convenient as SoundCloud, which lets you filter by usage. Searching for music marked in the public domain is the easiest way to find tracks for commercial use.
Musopen
Musopen provides sheet music, recordings and educational materials free of charge to the public. They focus on classical music and have recorded and released collections by composers such as Beethoven and Chopin.
They have a large collection of copyright free recordings that can be used by anyone for any project. You can search by composer, instrument, arrangement or mood.
Additional filters allow you to search for specific Creative Commons licenses, as well as the length, rating, and quality of a recording.
With a free Museo account, you can download up to five tracks every day. A paid membership is available for $55 per year and provides unlimited downloads, among other benefits.
Free music archive
Free Music Archive is another great site to explore with over 150,000 tracks from independent artists. FMA is a project of the Dutch company Tribe of Noise, focused on supporting independent artists.
To find music for your project, search the archive for a keyword (e.g. “electronic”) and then filter by license type, genre, or duration. FMA has over 3500 tracks in the public domain and over 8880 tracks under the CC-BY license.
CreativeCommons also has a curated profile at FMA, which includes a selection of CC-licensed tracks. However, they have a small number of tracks on the page, so searching through the full collection will return more results.
free sound
FreeSound is a collaborative database project based in Barcelona with a huge number of tracks and other recordings licensed under Creative Commons.
The look and feel of the website is very similar to Web 1.0 – while exploring, you can get memories of Geocities. But they have over 11,000 tracks in the public domain that can be used without attribution or restrictions.
The easiest way to explore FreeSound is to enter a keyword into the search bar. From there, you can use the filters on the right side to select your desired license type. From there, you can filter by additional tags.
Archive.org
The Internet Archive is a non-profit organization that, as the name suggests, archives all kinds of online artifacts: videos, music, images, books, and even websites. You may be familiar with one of their initiatives, the endlessly enjoyable Wayback Machine.
You can find Creative Commons music on Archive.org in several ways. One is to simply look for files with a “public domain”tag or a specific CC license, and then filter by media type (“Audio”).
The Internet Archive also houses the Live Music Archive, which holds recordings of concerts and performances. However, all of their content is for non-commercial use only. This means it goes beyond if you are a brand.
They also host LibriVox, a public domain audiobook collection. Okay, sure, it’s not music, but how about using a dramatic reading of Frankenstein in the campaign? Let’s think outside the box!
Jamendo was founded in Luxembourg to distribute music under a Creative Commons license and includes the work of over 40,000 artists. If you’re working on a non-commercial project, there are tons of free options to explore here. You can browse by genre or playlist or use the search bar.
They have a dedicated site for commercial projects that works on a subscription model. Users can also purchase individual licenses for $9.99.
Fugue Music
Compared to some of the other options, Fugue Music is a well-designed and very user-friendly index of free Creative Commons-licensed tracks. This is an Icons8 project that offers creative resources for designers. That explains why he looks so good!
The categories on Fugue are useful for creators, with options like Podcast Intro Music and Valentine’s Day Music.
However, all free tracks on FugueMusic are for non-commercial projects only. So you can’t use them for your brand or to generate income. Fugue Music offers single track and subscription payment models for commercial use.
One cool feature? Fugue Music offers a kind of personal shopper service: users can contact them with a case and they will make recommendations.
optimistic
Uppbeat offers music for creators and everything on their site is free for commercial use on any platform. This makes it easier to find if you’re a brand or content creator looking to monetize your videos.
The layout is clean and easy to navigate, with tracks organized into playlists and curated collections. You can also search by keyword to find specific genres, styles, or artists.
With a free account, you can download 10 tracks per month and explore about a third of their collection.
Uppbeat has a paid model that gives you access to their full catalog and gives you unlimited downloads. It also gives you access to the sound effects library.
FreePD
FreePD is a public domain collection of music, which means you can use it however you want without attribution.
Everything on the site is free to use and download, although FreePD offers the ability to bulk download all MP3 and WAV files for a small fee. The site is minimal and easy to learn.
The tracks are categorized into categories such as “Romantic Sentimentality “or “Miscellaneous “. In these categories, all tracks are labeled with 1 to 4 emojis to give you an idea of the mood. It’s a fun way to browse lists, and I personally find “🏜 🤠 🐂 🌵”more descriptive than any headline.
All music on this site was created by Kevin McLeod, who is licensed CC-BY. This means that you can use everything if you give it its due. He even has an attribution template that you can use on his FAQ page. If you don’t want to give credit, you can purchase a license.
Incompetech focuses on film music, so many of the categories and descriptions refer to film genres such as westerns or horror films. If you are working on a cinematic project, you can find the perfect track here.
You can search by mood, genre, theme, tag, or keyword. There are about 1355 tracks on the site.
audionautix
Audionautix provides music that can be used for free with attribution. Like Incompetech, this is a one-man show created by musician Jason Shaw. Everything is free, although you can make donations to support the site.
The site is easy to explore, with a wide range of moods and genres. You can also search by title or filter by tempo.
hearthis.at
Hearthis is a Dutch music site for artists and authors. While most music is free to share but not to use, there are several ways to find Creative Commons tracks.
One is to search the Creative Commons playlist, which includes a small number of tracks.
The other is to create an account and join the Creative Commons group, which has just over 170 members.
And finally, you can search for keywords like “Creative Commons”to find more tracks. Compared to some of the other resources in this article, Hearthis has a smaller collection of tracks and is harder to find. But you never know where you’ll find the perfect tune!
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