In the year 2018, you hardly get away from working with video as an entrepreneur. Moving images are simply more exciting than a photo. It’s not for nothing that vlogging is the new blogging! A video will be extra fun if there is nice music underneath. But what kind of music can you use for your videos?
Music is copyright protected:
Nobody is allowed to publish that music or to reproduce it without permission from the copyright owner. The use of music in a video is also included. After all, you multiply the music and make it public. Do you still want to use music? Then you could ask permission from the copyright owner. However, this is often complex. Usually, the artist is not the copyright owner, but the rights have been transferred to major music companies. So, do not do that!
Fortunately, there are also other solutions:
There is always an availability of free music for non-commercial use. For example, YouTube offers a music library with music that you can use for your video. YouTube also offers sound effects. That way you can be sure that you are safe, and you do not run the risk that YouTube will take your video offline due to copyright infringement.
Creative Commons licenses:
But there is more music that you can safely use in your videos. Music with Creative Commons licenses may be distributed, shared, and sometimes even edited by anyone. With this type of music, the copyright owner has already stated in advance that his music may be used by others, using a (Creative Commons) license.
Music with Creative Commons licenses (or similar music) is often referred to as ‘copyright free music.’ This is not strictly true. After all, music is still simply copyrighted, but the copyright holder has already granted a license to the person who wants to use the music.
You can also search on YouTube by typing in a search term, followed by ‘creative commons’: for example, ‘Taylor Swift, creative commons.’ Do not forget to tick ‘commercial use’ if you hope to earn money directly or indirectly with the use of the CC video (or image), for example, if you use the video for a promotional video of your company. By the way, there are also images with Creative Commons licenses. So, from now on, you can also use images to your heart’s content on your website!
Embed Video:
Do not make your video, but do you want to use someone else’s video on your blog or website? You can, if you ’embed’ the video. You can do this very easily with YouTube or Vimeo videos by pressing ‘share’ and then copying the ’embed code’ and pasting it in the HTML of your blog/site where you want the video. The judge considers embedding as linking and therefore does not constitute a copyright infringement.
Did you find this useful? Share it with your friends and colleagues! Suggestions and comments are appreciated!