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.'"