Royalty-free music for indie films

Looking for royalty-free music for your film? Don't do it.

A friend asked me for suggestions for websites that have good royalty-free music for a friend's short doc and I thought the reply I gave (slightly edited) may be helpful to anyone considering using royalty-free music in their indie film projects.

(When I'm talking about royalty-free music, I'm talking about music that is marketed as "royalty-free" -- as opposed to getting music for free for your project, which I definitely endorse as you can see, if you read on.)

The filmmaker in question had a short film which had been named after a classic big-band song.

Here's my take on royalty-free music and what I suggested she do:

I'm not a big fan of royalty-free music. It generally sounds cheap and like musak.

I'd suggest she find a local swing band that has their own songs (Lavay Smith and the Red Hot Skillet Lickers?) and see if they would let her use some music. Smaller local acts are often totally open to that, particularly if it's a cool flick with no commercial potential (which the short sounds like).

Real songs by real people are so much more engaging than canned royalty-free music.

You'd need to get a formal licensing agreement, but you can get for very very low rates from Brooke Wentz of the Rights Workshop. Maybe a couple hundred dollars for the contract?

If you have about $1000 (yeah right -- who has that?), they can actually find and clear a song for you -- doing all the legwork. I think that's their rate; you should contact them to confirm. Might even get an actual rendition of your dream song that's in the title of the short. Their website:

http://rightsworkshop.com/

Have you tried to find out if you can clear the song yourself? Who knows? Might not be that expensive for a small short film that's only going to be shown at festivals.

On the other hand, it's more likely to be way too expensive for you. And finding a local band would be the smart choice.

One other approach would be to create a tune using Apple's Soundtrack or Garage Band software. They have samples that you can build into a song or soundtrack. That would be royalty free, but still might sound a bit canned.

Lastly, you might want to consider changing the title of the film, since you're obviously invoking the song (a great tune, by the way).

There might be rights issues with using that title. I *THINK* you're in the clear since I recall that titles cannot be copyrighted -- but then I remember Spike Lee talking about having problems with that on one of his films (so I read).

So, bottom line: I can't help you find royalty-free music (other than suggesting a google search), but I do recommend finding a local band who would let you use their music, in return for helping expose a new audience to their music via the film.

UPDATE

My pals Ryan and Rebecca Coseboom of the deliriously-good band Stripmall Architecture had some important feedback on this post from a musician's perspective.

Ryan felt it was disingenuous for an indie filmmaker to offer exposure to indie bands in return for using their music. He's right. This inspired a wider rant from me about indie filmmakers that spout endless bullshit about their projects (read it here: Don't be an indie film bullshit emitter)

Rebecca also had some great feedback for DIY filmmakers looking for music for their films: "You might also consider music released under a creative commons license which is slightly different from strict 'royalty free.'"

Comments

[Eugenia]

Creative Commons is the way to go. I have written here exactly how this works, and how you can get it for free. All you have to do, is just credit the artist in your credits, and make sure you only download CC-BY music, not any of the rest of the kinds of CC music.

[Eugenia]

I think the HTML was stripped above. Here's the URL, email me if it still doesn't come up: http://www.osnews.com/story/20575/Guide_to_Creative_Commons_Media_for_Videographers

[Antipattern]

I agree that there is little exposure to be expected from Indie films. At the same time I don't think there's much harm in licensing your music for films that won't make any money anyways. A good compromise would probably be a contract with a clause like "If more than $X dollars are made from the film, then the band gets Y% of all revenues above X." or similar.

Regarding Rebecca's comment on CC-licensed music, the best starting point would probably be http://www.jamendo.com/, a site dedicated to CC-music only. Plus, if you have a few dollars left and feel guilty about using the music, you can easily make donations on their site, too. Archive.org's netlabels might be worth having a look at, too: http://www.archive.org/details/netlabels

If a wee bit of money is available, then Magnatune is another option. They have fairly simple licensing procedures.

[Eugenia]

As I mentioned above, it's best to only hunt for Creative Commons "Attribution" tracks only (CC-BY). The rest of the CC licenses are not suitable for filmmakers. Also, make sure the Attribution is done correctly. Apart from that pain, it's the best choice IMHO.

[Royalty Free Music]

Yeah, Real songs by real people are so much more engaging than canned royalty-free music.

[Dean Berry]

Check out some great kickass music: myspace.com/hdeanberry. Time to stop messing around. Yeehaw!

[Debra Russell]

As an up and coming filmmaker (that is your intention right?), you want to be creating relationships and partnerships that will serve your career in the long run. Using royalty free does not do that.

Creating a relationship with a composer whose work you love and respect, negotiating small up front and larger back-end percentages on gross is a much more pro-active and powerful way to build your career as a filmmaker.

Rising tides lift all ships.

[Royalty Free Music]

The royality film mucic is a great work.

[Scott]

As a publisher of royalty free music, I would like to chime in on the subject. The author makes some good points about canned music sometimes being stale (there are some awful libraries out there), however I think there may be some misconceptions here as well.

With regards to the comment "Real songs by real people are so much more engaging...", I think it is worth pointing out that MUCH of the musical content at royalty free music sites is exactly that. They are songs created by indie artists and then licensed by a royalty free music library who works hard to generate licensing revenue for that artist.

In our particular case, we have a mix of that type of music as well as tracks composed by guys who make a living composing music for film and television. Isn't that what an indie filmmaker is looking for to begin with?

The royalty free library simply takes a lot of the leg work out of tracking down artists and negotiating a license.

Finding a local band is a good idea too. It's just a bit more work.
Thanks,
Scott Meath
http://www.royaltyfreemusiclibrary.com

[Royalty Free Music]

There are definitely too many "muzak" tracks on many stock music sites. As a distributor of royalty free music at SFXsource.com, we vet all the tracks on our site to ensure that they pass the "muzak" test and sound authentic and emotive. Generally, I believe the quality of stock music is increasing as many passionate musicians are offering their tracks for use in film and video. We certainly have a bunch of great musicians on our site.

[natasha]

here is another good royalty free music site

http://www.royaltyfreemusicmp3.com/

[Tony Koretz]

Here is another royalty-free music website with top quality songs, many of which are not available anywhere else. It's not the biggest library out there, but what's there on the Rocksure Soundz website is high quality and uses "real instruments" played by "real Musicians" and not just boring loops.
http://rocksuresoundz.com

[Dirk Prysby]

Check out Rubber Clown Car (rubberclowncar.net) for a different style of pop-rock. Available for indie film makers.

[Yannis Kirimkiridis]

Hello

Also involved in the royalty free music business,i would rather disagree with the opinion that royalty free music sounds cheap. There are many providers of this licensing option and each library has its own positioning in terms of pricing and quality.
The Royalty free music business has grown dramatically in the last years attracting professional composers that seem to be interested in this distribution channel for their great music. There are also tracks that were once custom made , and now (always legally) are available for further sunc licensing through stock music libraries.

As industry grows the quality of content is rising as it attracts quality of human capital (composers /producers)

Thanks / Yannis Kirimkiridis
http://www.themusicase.com

[Aaron Poehler]

Funny that no one but people involved in the royalty free music business would disagree that much of it sounds cheap and generic.

[Alberta]

My band, Pitch Feather, is constantly searching for opportunities to collaborate with indie film makers.

Feel free to check out our music: http://www.pitchfeather.com

Do drop us a message if interested. Cheers. :)

[MONKEYSHORTS]

Filmmakers please consider MONKEYSHORTS music for your next project. http://monkeyshorts.com/