ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

12 years ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Why not start by asking prsformusic.com as you'll be needing them to clear any rights anyway, and they may suggest agents with suitable catalogue for what you're after.

12 years ago - Sue Ballingall

Yes royalty free is an option...another way would be to give a music producer a piece of music that you would like to use and have them create something similar that you can agree a fee for.

12 years ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Hi again Adeline,

From your PM I gather you're short of time and not overly keen to go via PRS. I can understand that, but it does mean you'll be choosing from a much smaller pool of music. Here's why - all creative activity generates copyright automatically, and that copyright takes many many decades to expire. There are 2 types of rights on music, the mechanical rights (the tune itself) and the performance rights. PRS can clear both of these for you, and you need both unless you pay musicians to re record three track (in which case you only need the mechanical rights).

How can you avoid this and the associated fees? Either find a track out of copyright (you might find some pianola scrolls!), or use some royalty free music. This is music where in exchange for a one-off fee you get to use it with no further payments. A quick search online for 'royalty free music' well bring you up many libraries. The quality varies from rather good to absolutely dreadful, as you'd imagine.

You could also looking at other music licences but it can be a minefield. A correctly licensed Creative Commons licensed work may be OK for you, although there are some real conditions attached such as (usually) that it cannot be used commercially without paying the author a fee. Be very careful also of licence abuse where some teenage oik republishes the whole Beatles back catalogue but adds his own CC licence, not understanding what it means. If that happens and you use the track, the rights holders will come and find you if they find out, and make life miserable.

As such, your best bet for short time (and simplest licencing) will be to look for royalty free music. There are even some sites that advertise that they offer free royalty free music, although you'll find you get what you pay for to a large extent!