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Royalty Free Music?
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What is "Royalty Free Music"?

"Royalty Free" applies to a special type of music licensing where a video producer pays only a single, up-front fee to have the right to use a copyrighted sound recording in their film, video or digital multimedia production. (The process of obtaining the rights to use music in this way is commonly refered to as "synchronization licensing".) No additional payments (known as "royalties") need to be paid after the initial license purchase. Important: "Royalty-Free" DOES NOT MEAN "Copyright-Free". There appears to be a growing misconception that music from royalty free music libraries is somehow free of copyright protections. This could be an unfortunate side-effect of the YouTube "copyright notice" warning practice where YouTube producers have their videos flagged if they use music previously released for commercial sale. (This may give the impression that music that is not flagged with copyright warnings is somehow "copyright-free".) But the truth is that if you did not compose and record the music yourself, the music is copyrighted by somebody elese. The moment a musician commits an original composition to paper, tape or computer memory, the music is automatically copyrighted by them. But back to the main point of this F.A.Q. blurb: This royalty free status of any music you download from the FSM service lasts for an indefinite period of time, whether your video or film production is for personal or business use. The music available on the FREESOUNDTRACKMUSIC site is posted (uploaded) by the composers/producers as indicated in the "description" section which accompanies each track listing. (All music copyrights belong to the composers/producers, and NOT the freesoundtrackmusic.com platform or the web service development company INTERANNEX WEB APPLICATIONS).


If you are a soundtrack composer who would like to have your music compositions hosted for royalty-free licensing @ freesoundtrackmusic.com, please read the Free Soundtrack Music Composer's Agreement.