"Royalty-free" music is not the same as "copyright-free" music. Most royalty-free music is still copyrighted, but it is offered under a license that lets you use it — usually for free — as long as you give the composer credit. The most common deal is a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license: you can use the music however you like, but you must credit the composer.
How revelavid helps
When you attach background music to a scene, the Music credit field burns the attribution text into the video while that music plays — like a watermark at the bottom of the frame. That satisfies the attribution requirement of CC BY and most other attribution-only licenses, so you can use the music without paying.
The built-in music library
The built-in Music library (the "Music library…" button in the inspector) is a curated selection of Kevin MacLeod's incompetech catalog, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Tracks are served directly by revelavid from our own server and downloaded once into your music library. Every track's credit is pre-filled for you, so the attribution shown in your video is exactly what the license requires.
If you would rather not have credits visible inside your videos — for business or aesthetic reasons — most of these sites also sell a one-time license fee directly to the composer. You typically pay a small, affordable amount on the composer's own website and receive a receipt, which lets you use the music without the credit. Always check the license terms shown for the specific track you pick.
A typical credit format
The exact wording a composer wants is usually shown on their site. Music from the built-in Music library (Kevin MacLeod's incompetech catalog) is licensed under CC BY 4.0 and asks for this credit (replace Title with the name of the piece):
Title Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
revelavid pre-fills exactly this credit for every built-in track. When you import music from the external sources below, paste the credit the site asks for into the Music credit field and revelavid will show it in your video.
Recommended sources
These sites offer royalty-free music under permissive, mostly CC BY terms:
- incompetech — Kevin MacLeod's large catalog; a long-standing standard for CC BY music.
- Pixabay Music — large library; mostly public-domain-style terms, so credits are often not required.
- Audionautix — Jason Shaw's catalog of 250+ pieces with a familiar production sound.
- Ben Sound — music by Benjamin Tissot, from cinematic to corporate.
- Josh Woodward — 200+ pieces, easy downloads.
- Silverman Sound — over 200 pieces, active for 8+ years.
- Free Music Archive — Andy Cohen — dreamy acoustic pieces.
- Tim Beek — 150+ pieces with a familiar interface.
- Tim Kulig — 2000+ pieces designed for modern media.
- Kongano — dozens of pieces with bright production.
- Brett Van Donsel — real guitars and stuff; lots of Western and Jazz.
Always read the license shown on the site for the specific track you use — credit formats and terms vary per piece and per site.