All of these resources should either point you to material in the public domain, licensed under the Creative Commons, or material that is Royalty Free or Rights Managed. Please check the license agreements carefully before moving forward with any use of materials. If you have any questions about the legality of your use, please consult with an attorney.
Also, best use of the materials will be gained by reading the pages on Public Domain, Fair Use, the Creative Commons, and Right of Publicity on this site before proceeding. Or at least before you start choosing material to put into your film. Also the pages in the Music is Complex section may be helpful. The Issues and Pitfalls page would be a good place to start.
The pages listed here claim to host public domain material, but that’s no guarantee that it is, in fact, in the public domain.
As of January 1st, 2025, with a few exceptions, material published in the U.S. in 1929 and before should be public domain. Please check the Copyright Duration Databases and Tools page for resources and information on determining copyright status of any individual work. I’ve also tried to outline some basic issues and pitfalls to watch out for when using public domain material there.
One of the major exceptions for U.S. Copyright Law is for music and sound recordings:
- All Sound Recordings Prior to 1923 Will Enter the US Public Domain in 2022
– The Public Domain Review
The Music Modernization Act of 2018 rectified a strange situation where sound recordings were not included in the Copyright Act of 1909. This is apparently because the music industry was too young to be included at the time. The new law clarifies the resulting mishmash of local and state laws under a single federal ruling. But even with this ruling, it does, however, mean that music and sound recordings are behind when most other U.S. works fall into the public domain by several years.
And, even though attribution of public domain material is not required, it’s good form to put any material that you did not create in your credits.
Ideally you should read the first article in this list before you go diving for free or cheap music. (And the next one, too, if you have time. Yes, I know it’s a lot of reading. You’ll thank me later.) It does look like these were written before the Music Modernization Act was passed, though, so just take that into consideration. But that only counts for music and sound recordings, not for sheet music.
- Making sure it’s public domain sheet music
– Public Domain Sherpa - Avoiding problems with public domain music
– Public Domain Sherpa - Free sheet music resources
– Public Domain Sherpa - Public domain recordings
– Public Domain Sherpa
– Includes Music and Spoken Word - Musopen – Classical Music
– Public Domain and Creative Commons - (Most of the Musopen content has been dedicated to the public domain, but please check each item’s exact copyright notation and Musopen’s terms of service. Also, their high quality recordings require a paid subscription. I have no idea if they would let you pay for an individual high quality recording. Their contact is https://musopen.org/contact/. )
- Musopen
– Wikipedia - Terms and Conditions of Use
– Musopen.org - ChoralWiki – Choral Public Domain Library
- PDInfo.com – Public Domain Sheet Music Reprints
– You must purchase the reprints
For the rest of the material on this page, it would be wise to check out the pages Issues and Pitfalls and Smaller Budget under the Music is Complex section.
- incompetech – Music
– Creative Commons and Royalty Free Licensing - incompetech – Music FAQ
- Filmmusic.io
– Creative Commons - Filmmusic.io Standard License
- Freesound – Sound Effects
- Help – Terms of Service
– Freesound - Free Music Archive
– Creative Commons and Royalty Free Licensing - License Guide
– Free Music Archive - ccMixter – Music
- Terms of Use
– ccMixter
I’ve just listed these commercial sites here to get you started. They appear to have reasonable license terms for independent films. Please do your own research with regards to reviews of their services and commercial practices before deciding on a company to do business with.
- PremiumBeat Music
- Licensing
– PremiumBeat - AudioJungle – Music and Sound Effects
- Licenses
– AudioJungle - Licenses
– AudioJungle Sound Effects - Jamendo Music
- Pricing
– Jamendo
- Marmoset – Rights Managed and Music Production
- Licensing
– Marmoset - Marmoset allows up to a $250,000 budget per film for festivals, and if your film gets distribution or is shown outside of festivals, you can contact them and they will renegotiate the fee.
If you’re going to be dealing with pre-recorded music, definitely check out the Issues and Pitfalls page and the Larger Budget page under the Music is Complex section.
The short-short version is: for almost all well-known songs, there are two licenses. The rights to the composition, known as the sync rights, are usually owned by the publisher. The rights to the performance itself, known as the master rights, are usually owned by the record company. Typically (especially if you want to use a well-known song) you will need to acquire both licenses. The only cases where you wouldn’t need to think about both licenses is if you are getting both with a royalty free license or Creative Commons license, if you are doing your own cover version and only need the sync rights, or if one or both licenses are public domain.
Performance Rights Organizations represent artists, but you may have to search multiple databases if there are multiple songwriters per song. Payment is not normally done directly to the PRO, but to the publisher. However, you can search their databases to see if they represent a song that you want to use, and find out who the publisher is.
- ASCAP Database – ACE Repertory
- BMI Database – Songview Search
- SESAC Database – SESAC Repertory
- Global Music Rights is a newer and smaller PRO, but you may need to search their database for a song you want to use
- Global Music Rights – Database
For royalty free music, you may not need to deal with the music publisher and record company separately. But you may have to fill out cue sheets to submit to the PROs describing the use of the music. This is so that the artists get paid royalties.
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