One of the internet-inspired innovations that gives you the ground to make money online is royalty free music. Before it became the preferred option, if one needed to use a song or piece of music as background to a commercial, or as intro on TV or radio, they had to pay royalties to the copyright owner of the sound- musician or record label. For every single time that sound was played, some payment had to be made.
The only other option is to contract a composer to create custom music for the project. Then royalty-free music came along. Despite what the name conjures, it is not free music. Rather, one now only has to pay once. After that initial payment, he is free to use the music as long as he needs to without hassle. This also meant that the industry of buying and selling music opened up to even more demand; as a lot more people; down to the average Joe making YouTube videos could purchase unique music for use.
Stay to the end and you’d not only learn how and where to publish your original sounds but also the sites you are most likely to have success with as a beginner. That’s a bonus (wink wink).
For the love of definitions; royalty-free music is music created primarily as an enhancement for commercials, training videos, software applications, podcast intros, YouTube videos, games, corporate videos, and many more media projects. The key thing to remember is that this sort of music is created for media use.
It goes by a couple of other names; production music, and stock music, and is peddled by a great number of dedicated libraries online.
Profitability Of Royalty Free Music
Producing and publishing royalty-free music is a beautiful kind of side hustle. Characteristic of media work, it easily becomes a stream of passive income. It pays you every time someone licenses it, even ten years after you’ve published it.
Knowing What Royalty free Music Library to Submit To
Let’s discuss libraries. These are platforms online that act as marketplaces for sellers and buyers of stock music. They store a large collection of music created and uploaded by contributors- like you- to sell it to those who need it and ensure the money finds its way back to the creator.
The first thing to know about libraries is that they all have different tastes and core audiences. It implies you have to submit to a library that stocks the kind of music you’re creating, for the kind of users you are creating for. For instance; ALIBI Music generally caters to the film as well as video gaming industry. AudioJungle, on the other hand, is better favored by music supervisors and producers.
Know who you are creating for.
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Furthermore, there are broadly three types of libraries;
1. Exclusive Libraries:
These platforms, like APM Music, require that you grant them sole rights to sell your music. This means that you cannot distribute or publish your tracks elsewhere, like on Spotify, without getting into legal hot water. Generally, you tend to earn higher than deals with their counterparts, non-exclusive libraries. However, in the event where your tracks aren’t making sales on the website, you have no option of going to publish them elsewhere. More corporate clients tend to favor dealing with these libraries, however, as they tend to have a reputation for having a very strict gatekeeping process and only stocking high-quality music.
2. Non-Exclusive Libraries:
Pond5 and Audiojungle, as prime examples, do not demand single entity exclusive rights. This means you can submit to multiple platforms, which can increase your exposure and potential income. The catch is that gatekeeping here is generally lower, hence admitting much more contributors, hence meaning that you have a lot more competition to wade through. There are good places to start as a beginner, however.
4. Subscription-Based Libraries:
These operate a model where users pay a recurring fee (a subscription) to access their library of music. The creators are compensated based on the terms of the subscription service, which may include a share of the subscription revenue or a fixed amount per play or download within the platform. This model can potentially provide a steady stream of income for creators. Epidemic Sound is a popular library that runs on this sort of model.
A Few Important Things to Note About Royalty Free Music
A few notes that would be useful in your journey of submitting your music to libraries;
- Since you would be composing stock music specifically for use in media, you need to compose it in a way that can be: chopped, looped, edited.
- It is a good idea to submit your music in a number of versions; a full length version, an acoustic, 15-second, 30-second, 60-second versions. This shows that your sound is versatile, and adaptable to different contexts and moods.
- Submit your music in the correct format. The library may specify what formats they accept, but generally, you should provide high-quality audio files such as WAV or AIFF.
- You would need to identify copyright ownership. This looks like information about the ownership of the master recording, the names of writers and performers involved in the recording.
How to Get Started
- Before submitting your music, register your songs with a Performance Rights Organization (PRO) to ensure you receive royalties.
- Look for libraries that are currently accepting submissions and that match your style of music. Read their submission guidelines carefully.
- Follow the submission guidelines of each library. Some may require you to submit a demo, while others might have an online submission process.
Top 5 Libraries to Publish on as a Beginner
- Pond5
- AudioJungle
- Crucial Music
- Songtradr
- Audiosparx
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Conclusion
This has meant to be a launchpad article, to show you the possibility of making decent money from making and selling royalty-free music. We hope that this spurs you to delve deeper into the passion and we wish you success in the industry. Remember to tag us when you get to the top!
