Royalty Free Music - What is it?

In a nutshell Royalty Free Music refers to a type of music licensing that allows the purchaser to pay for the music license only once and to use the music for as long as desired.

When you purchase Royalty Free Music license for a video on your Youtube Channel. You pay one single price whether you have 100 views or 100,000 views, and whether you use the music for 1 month or 10 years. You pay once and you use it for as long as you want.

The term “Royalty Free” is pretty confusing, as it simply means “Free of Royalty”. The term is the opposite of “rights managed” licensing where the purchaser pays fees (royalties) according to the number of times it will be used as well as the size of the territory. With Rights Managed licensing you would need to pay a fee every time the music is used in your videos.

What Royalty Free Music does NOT mean

Royalty Free Music is NOT free of Charge!

It is “Free of Royalty” not cost free. Just like a fat free cookie is “free of fat” not free of cost. Or a “tax free” product is not free, it is just free of taxes. And yes some people may be offering their music for free – whether it is also Royalty Free or not! For example a composer may be offering you his music for free for your College film in exchange for listing his work in the credits.

Royalty Free Music is NOT Copyright Free music
I am not sure there is such a thing as “Copyright free” music since anyone who creates a piece of music automatically owns the Copyright for that music. The creator may not care and say that anyone can use his music for any purpose. In this case the Copyright owner is giving you the “right to copy” his music for use on YouTube, Vimeo, podcasts and social media videos. So it may be free to use but that does not make it free of Copyright. And this does not mean that the composer has given up his Performing Rights if his music ends up a background music on a YouTube Video for example.