11 Websites to Download Free and Copyright-Free Music for YouTube Videos

Music and sound effects are vital if you want to make an attractive and engaging video for your target audience. Music adds an emotional touch to your video and makes your video more interesting and engaging.

Also, music helps your audience understand the hidden message and the emotion that you want to convey through your video.

But it’s not easy to find out the best and copyright-free or royalty-free music and sound effects to use on your YouTube video (as background music or other) or any other creative projects such as podcasts, games, and movies.

Today I’m going to show you 11 amazing free websites to download copyright free music to use on your YouTube videos, podcasts, or anywhere you want.

These websites are free to use, full of high quality, and copyright-free or royalty-free music files. You can use any audio files from these websites to do almost anything.

Understanding The License of Copyright-Free Music

When looking for copyright-free music for videos, you’ll see that most of it are offered under a Creative Commons license. While this license gives you permission to download and share the content, there are different types of freedom within it. The five most popular types of creative commons licenses are the following:

• CC0: Unrestricted. Publish, share, modify, and commercialize the work without restrictions.
• CC BY: Attribution. Unrestricted license as long as you credit the author.
• CC BY-SA: Attribution-Share-Alike. Derivative works can only be distributed under the same license.
• CC-BY-ND: Attribution-No-Derivatives. Derivative works and remixes are not allowed.
• CC BY-NC: Attribution-Non-Commercial. It cannot be used for commercial purposes.

Other common license types you might come across in your search for free music are “royalty-free” and “public domain”:

Royalty-free licenses are those which give the right of using a work without paying fees each time.

Public domain is the most open form of licensing, as works can be used for free for any purpose.

1. Unminus

I’m in love with Unminus – Unsplash for music. We all love Unsplash because they allow us to use their copyright-free images anywhere without giving attribution. Unminus wants to do the same with music licensing.

Unminus is different from all the other music downloading sites here because the tracks come with a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license.

In case you don’t know about Creative Commons licenses, the CC0 license lets you use any work for free, in personal or commercial causes, edit it as you see fit, and without attribution. This means you can do whatever you want with the CC0 music on Unminus, and you don’t have to add a link for it in the YouTube description.

Type of license: CC0

2. Free Music Archive (FMA)

The Free Music Archive (FMA) is the #1 online resource for free music and royalty-free music. Free Music Archive works with radio stations, artists, and industry enthusiasts to offer one of the largest available selections of free music for videos.

You can search by song genres, title, clip duration, or type of license to find out the right music track for your YouTube videos or your creative projects.

While the majority of the songs are licensed under Creative Commons and licensed under the Public Domain, some of them are only available for personal download and listening. Make sure to double-check before you start working on your project.

Type of license: All CC types and Public Domain

3. FreePD

All music available on FreePD is licensed under CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain dedication, and you can download all these music for free.

So, you can copy, modify, distribute, and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission and without giving attribution.

All music of FreePD is written by Kevin MacLeod, Alexander Nakarada, Bryan Teoh, and more. 

Kevin MacLeod is the founder of another copyright-free music downloading site – Incompetech.com. He has composed over 2,000 pieces of royalty-free library music and made them available under a Creative Commons copyright license.

Type of license: Public Domain

Related post: 17 Amazing Free Websites to Download Copyright Free Stock Images

4. Freesound.org

Free sound is full of awesome royalty-free music, instrumental music, SFX, and free sound effects that you can use on your YouTube videos, podcasts, or wherever you want to use.

Launched in 2005, Freesound is a collaborative repository of CC-licensed audio samples, with more than 400,000 sounds and effects, and 8 million registered users (as of March 2019).

Sounds are uploaded to the website by its users and cover a wide range of subjects, from field recordings to synthesized sounds.

Type of license: CC0, CC BY, and CC BY-NC

5. Thematic.com

Thematic connects YouTube creators and music artists, providing curated and pre-cleared music for your YouTube videos for free.

Thematic allows you to use free songs from established artists and musicians to use on your YouTube videos without any copyright claim. To download free music from Thematic, you can be a Thematic member for free by signing up using your Google account.

After you’ve become a member, you’ll get to see the full Thematic music catalog, you can use all these premium quality music for free. No claims. No takedowns. No worries. All the music available on Thematic is pre-cleared.

Of course, you have to follow a particular attribution link and style to use the songs on YouTube or Instagram.

Thematic allows you to filter thousands of free music clips by genre, community, vocal, tempo, and mood.

6. YouTube Audio Library (YouTube Music Library)

The YouTube Audio Library is a great and my favorite resource to download royalty-free music and sound effects for YouTube videos and other creative projects.

Maybe you’re planning to create a YouTube channel for your videos and later share them on your website or blog and other social platforms. If that’s the case, why not get your music directly from YouTube?

The YouTube Audio Library or the YouTube Music Library allows you to filter thousands of free music clips by genre, instrument, mood, duration, and license type.

Type of license: Royalty-Free and CC BY

7. Bensound.com

Bensound.com has been created by Benjamin TISSOT also known as Bensound, a Composer and Musician based in France who has been creating music for more than 10 years.

Bensound offers thousands of royalty-free music for YouTube videos, social media projects, websites, games, and more. The platform can be browsed by genre, popularity, uploading date, or tags. Although it once contained only the work of composer Benjamin Tissot, it now includes the works of other musicians as well.

The vast majority of clips on the platform are offered under an attribution no-derivatives CC license. This means you can use them as free background music for videos as long as you credit the site and don’t remix the tracks or use them to create new songs.

Type of license: CC BY-ND

8. Musopen

Musopen is a non-profit and its mission is to set music free by offering free music for video editing, educational materials, and sheet music.

The majority of the audio files available are orchestral pieces, either registered as public domain or under a Creative Commons license.

On the site, you’ll be able to download free music clips from historical figures like Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Franz Schubert, as well as renowned pieces such as The Valkyrie, Carmen, and The Barber of Seville.

You can filter the Musopen music library by the composer, orchestra, period, mood, length, and more.

Type of license: Public Domain and all CC types

9. Chillhop

Chillhop is a totally different music licensing site that’s full of high-quality soothing music.

After signing up, you can use any of the songs found on your Chillhop Creator Dashboard which have the download option enabled.

All you need to do is credit the music on YouTube. Just add the following credit link in your YouTube video description: Music by Chillhop Music: https://chillhop.com

It’s something like the CC BY-ND license.

Chillhop holds all the rights to their music and their music is not royalty-free. They allow creators to use their music as long as their music receives the mandatory credit.

10. Mubert Royalty-Free Music Generator

You can use Mubert to generate music tracks of any duration, mood, or genre in just a few clicks. All you need is an idea of what kind of vibe you’re into right now. You start by selecting from different Moods, Genres, Themes, Playlists, Instruments, and BPM’s and then you specify the length of the track you want to produce.

The artificial intelligence takes your requirements and produces a track that you can download and license for any use case.

Type of license: Royalty-free

11. Pixabay Music

Pixabay Music is my new favorite royalty-free music downloading site.

All music available on Pixabay Music is licensed under Pixabay License (free for commercial and non-commercial use), and you can download all this music for free.

You can copy, modify, distribute, and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission and without giving attribution.

By using the Pixabay Music Library filter, you can choose the right music track according to your genre and mood to use on your creative project.

Use Pixabay Music tracks in your Podcasts, YouTube videos, Facebook videos, and anywhere you want, without thinking about copyright issues.

Bonus 1: Royalty Free Stock Music by Coverr.co

It’s a great site where you can download royalty-free stock music which is free to use in your creative projects, for commercial use, too.

The best part,

You can also download royalty-free stock videos.

And,

You can also contribute free videos/music, and get paid.

You can use any video or music from Coverr.co for commercial or non-commercial purposes for free. Coverr.co or the artist do not need to be credited, although it is appreciated when possible.

Coverr.co grants you an irrevocable, non-exclusive copyright license to download, copy, modify, perform, and use videos and music from Coverr.co for free.

Bonus 2: Mixkit.co – Astounding Royalty Free Stock Music

Explore a growing collection of impressive free-stock music tracks for your next video editing project. There is no requirement for attribution or sign-up to use these royalty-free audio clips.

Discover great tracks for YouTube videos, podcasts, and online advertising. Mixkit.co lets you download unlimited music across various genres, including hip-hop, lo-fi, and cinematic.

Final Thoughts: 11 Websites to Download Free and Copyright-Free Music for YouTube Videos

All these copyright free music downloading sites are awesome and I’m using all these sites for a long time. Just understand the license and use copyright free music from these sites without worrying about copyright claims and strikes.

Now It’s Your Turn

Hey, I really hope you enjoyed this list of websites to download free and copyright-free music for YouTube videos

Now I’d like to hear from you:

Which music downloading websites do you prefer to download music for your project?

Let me know in the comment section below right now.

Also, share this post with your friends and YouTubers who are looking for some music downloading sites to download free music for their YouTube videos and other creative projects.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me. I’m always available to help young hustlers like you.

Keep hustling!