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Is Music On Spotify Royalty Free

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  • Spotify and its competitors, like Deezer only acquired the rights of the music for non-public use. It is not very likely that they will go after you, but you are most likely to get into trouble with copyright collecting agencies.

It'd be great if you could Google your favorite song and make a clip to use as your podcast's intro, outro, or background music. Unfortunately, copyright laws and music licensing make finding legal podcast music a bit trickier to navigate.

Spotify is a digital music service that gives you access to millions of songs.

In this blog, we'll show you how to get free (or affordable) podsafe music, and debunk some common myths around using copyrighted content.

What kind of podcast music can you use?

The vast majority of music is subject to copyright; artists want to protect their music and get paid when it's used (rightfully so).

It's illegal to use copyrighted music on your podcast — full stop. You might get away with it for a while, but eventually, someone will take notice. Record companies utilize teams of lawyers to find people who violate copyright laws and can have your podcast taken down, or even sue you for violation.

So what kind of music can you use without getting into legal trouble?

#1 Creative Commons Music

Creative Commons music allows artists to share their compositions with the world for free. Although Creative Commons licenses come in all varieties, they usually let you use a piece of music without getting permission, as long as you give credit to the artist.

*Some CC licenses allow for commercial use, but not all do. Be sure to read terms of use carefully before using a specific song.

#2 Royalty-Free Music

As the name suggests, royalty-free music means you don't need to pay royalties to the artist every time you use it. Creative Commons music is royalty-free, but royalty-free music can also include any song you need to make a one-time payment for or have a subscription to use.

*Royalty-free music typically includes a lifetime license, while others are active only as long as you have a subscription from the service you found the track.

#3 Public Domain Music

Copyright on a song eventually expires, and when it does, the track enters the public domain where you can use it however you see fit. A lot of older music like classics and old children's songs fall within the public domain.

Note: You can also broadcast any music you get explicit, written permission to use by someone authorized to do so. Obtaining the rights to popular songs is far out of the price range of most podcasters, but you can easily ask a musician friend or smaller bands and artists to use their track on your show as long as you give proper attribution.

Top 10 podsafe music resources (7 free & 3 paid)

Thankfully, there are a lot of excellent 'podsafe' music resources out there for creators. All the resources on this list are safe to use for your podcast, but we still suggest reading the terms of service for each song carefully as licenses vary.

How Download Music From Spotify

Best places to get free podcast music:

1. Pixabay: Copyright-free stock music by a community of creators
2. YouTube Audio Library: Huge selection of royalty-free music
3. Incompetech: Wide-array of tracks created by solo artist, Kevin MacLeod
4. The Free Music Archive: Expansive, free music library for podcasters
5. 909 Music on Soundcloud: Modern, cutting edge, podsafe songs
6. Musopen: Classical music tracks
7. CCMixter: A community music remixing site

Pixabay

Pixabay is a completely free resource for quality royalty-free stock music, images, and even video. The platform lets you browse music based on genre and mood and offers a wide variety of sound effects perfect for audio dramas and narration.

All content on the site is copyright-free and released under Pixabay's license, so you don't have to give the artist credit or pay a fee.

Youtube Audio Library

Many creators aren't aware that Youtube has an extensive selection of royalty-free music available for free use and unlimited downloads. You can search the music library by mood, track name, artist, or genre.

If you upload your podcast to Youtube, you can overlay the downloaded track on top of your footage directly on the site. Downloading songs is easy, and all you need is a YouTube account to get started.

Incompetech.com

This resource is one of the older, more well-known royalty-free music sites. All of the music on Incompetech comes from a single artist named Kevin MacLeod — you might recognize some of his songs from other podcasts or Youtube videos.

There are hundreds of songs to choose from in a wide variety of genres, but remember, you do have to give credit to the artist to use a track for free.

909 Music on Soundcloud

909 Music offers a small but quality library of royalty-free music from a few different artists. Their music tends to be more modern and cutting-edge — perfect for contemporary intro music, outro music, or theme songs.

You can download unlimited music from the site and don't need to worry about attribution — just find the track you need, download the file, and incorporate it into your podcast.

Musopen.org

This nonprofit organization offers a wide variety of royalty-free music, with a focus on mostly classical tunes. You can search based on instrument, composer, or time period (i.e., Renaissance, Baroque, or the 21st century.)

Musopen's search function is intuitive, their rating system makes it easy to spot a good song at-a-glance, and you don't even have to make an account to download tracks.

CCMixter.org

CCMixter is a global music community of over 45,000 musicians around the world. The site has music, remixes, samples, acapella, and encourages users to download, cut up, sample, and share the music however they like.

Since users can upload their own music to CCMixter, it's a less curated experience and might take some time to find your diamond in the rough. But if you need your music for free, we think it's worth checking out.

Freemusicarchive.org

Free Music Archive has an 'open source' approach to music, just like CC Mixter. The archive has a library full of high-quality songs you can safely use for podcasting (be sure to read their FAQ to understand exactly how you can use each song.) You can also access their library of songs on Android or iOS devices through the FMA app.

Affordable paid podcast music services

Free music sites are an excellent option for many creators, but some podcasters want to use highly original music listeners are unlikely to hear anywhere else.

These paid resources are a great alternative if you want a more extensive selection of higher-quality jingles and theme songs!

StockMusic.com ($2.99+/track)

When you pay for a track on StockMusic, you get a lifetime 'synchronization' license (which means you're free to use the song on your podcast indefinitely.)

You can browse StockMusic's database by album, track, genre, or even keywords like 'relaxed' or 'somber.' Once you create a StockMusic account, you can create a cue sheet to help with production or curate a full playlist where you can download and pay for all your tracks at once.

Audiojungle.net ($5+/track)

Is Music On Spotify Royalty Free Shipping

Audiojungle is part of Envato Market and has over 35,000 professional creators and thousands of royalty-free tracks starting at $5 per song. You can search through the corporate-sounding stock music tracks or find more unique songs composed by indie artists.

Note: Audiojungle's terms of service are tricky to decipher, but it appears you have to purchase an SFX Multi-Use music license to use a track in more than one episode.

Soundstripe ($11.25/mo)

If you use a lot of new music on your podcast and don't want to worry about each license's limitations, Soundstripe could be the perfect option for you.

Run by professional musicians, Soundstripe's sound engineers only accept the most exceptional music and sound effects. The site has 24/7 customer support and unlimited access to thousands of premium songs.

Misconceptions about using copyrighted music

At this point, you might be thinking there's a way to get around copyright law so you can use your favorite songs under the radar (spoiler alert: there isn't!).

Just to drive the point home, here are some common myths floating around the internet concerning music copyright.

Myth #1 I can use any music if I'm not making money off it.

Truth: You're subject to copyright law even if you have a small podcast with only a few downloads and no plans to monetize.

Myth #2 It's okay if I play less than 10 seconds of the song.

Truth: The amount of music that you play has no bearing on whether it's legal. Artists can get into plagiarism disputes even if their melody sounds too similar to an existing song!

Myth #3 I can use any music under 'fair use.'

Truth: While fair use is a legitimate defense for using copyrighted material in some cases, you can't use a copyrighted song with the intent to claim fair use.

Myth #4 As long as I give attribution, the artist will understand.

Truth: Giving credit to the artist doesn't exempt you from copyright law.

Myth #5 It's okay to use because I review music on my podcast.

Truth: Playing a song you don't have the rights to is a copyright violation, even if you only play a short clip of the track with the purpose of reviewing it.

Summary: You cannot use copyrighted music (regardless of length, intent, or monetization) unless you obtain the rights or get explicit permission.

Make your podcast better with podsafe music!

As you can see, there's no shortage of podsafe music options, so you shouldn't have a problem finding plenty of top-notch tracks for your show.

Once you download some songs, check out these resources to learn how to leverage podcast music to take your episodes to the next level!

  • How to Create a Podcast Intro Your Listeners Will Love (blog)
  • Podcast Music Tips (video)

If you like listening to music, you must be familiar with music streaming services. Spotify is the most popular one in the music streaming world. It’s a freemium service. Spotify free users are able to get the basic features - listening to more than 50 million songs online, while Spotify premium users are able to access advanced features - download Spotify songs for offline listening, for example. If you are one of the Spotify free users, you must be looking forward to finding a way to download music from Spotify without premium account.

This article offers you the best solution. Besides, you’ll learn more about Spotify and a useful Spotify music tool. Below we divide the whole article into four parts. In part one, we briefly introduce the advantages and disadvantages of Spotify. In part two, we compare Spotify premium and Spotify free concerning about the main differences. In part three, we introduce the well-known Spotify music tool – Sidify to you and in part four, we guide you to download music from Spotify free by Sidify step by step.

Part 1: Spotify – the King in the Music Streaming World

Part 2: Spotify Free vs. Premium

Part 3: Spotify Music Downloader – Sidify

Part 4: Tutorial: How to Download Music from Spotify Free by Sidify

Is There Royalty Free Music On Spotify

Part 1: Spotify – the King in the Music Streaming World

Royalty Free Playlist Spotify

The way people listen to music has changed, with a move away from digital music to music streaming services, which offers users a much larger music library with less fee. People now can listen to music anywhere and anytime with good network connection. Besides, most music streaming services also provide uses with the feature of downloading songs for offline listening by monthly/yearly subscription.

Being the king in the music streaming world, Spotify is no exception, but its offline listeining mode is restricted to premium users. Spotify free users must be in good network environment to enjoy Spotify songs.

There are all kinds of reasons for us to love Spotify, such as its user-friendly interface, offering vast music library, supporting various devices, low or even zero cost and etc. But when it comes to the drawbacks, the most disappointing one is that we are unable to save Spotify songs to local computer. How come? Move on and you'll find the answer.

What You Like and Dislike about Spotify (Pros and Cons)

Spotify is a freemium service that has won a great number of members over years. Though Spotify Free is ad-supported, it remains popular for those who'd like to enjoy music for free. Spotify is a good source to stream high quality audios but it's not a universal app.


Learn More >

Part 2: Spotify Free vs. Premium

Spotify’s free tier isn’t really free. It’s ad-supported. Companies are paying Spotify for the ads you listen to every few tracks. And to encourage people to upgrade, Spotify free users are limited in certain ways.

Spotify free users is able to access more than 50 million Spotify songs as the premium subscribers, but are denied of the access to high quality audio streams and play Spotify songs offline.

And although Spotify premium user can play Spotify songs offline, it doesn’t mean that the paid users can download them to local computer. Spotify songs are protected in a proprietary format, for which it's impossible to save them as local files. In other words, the offline feature is temporary. Once the subscription is cancelled, all the Spotify songs won’t be allowed to stream offline.

Spotify Free vs. Premium: Is it Worth Upgrading?
Free

Compared to Spotify premium, the greatest advantage for Spotify free is zero-cost. As for the disadvantages, Spotify Free users are unable to enjoy ad-free music in high audio quality as premium users. In addition, Spotify free users would be even denied of access to Spotify under poor internet connection.


Learn More >

Part 3: Spotify Music Downloader – Sidify

To download music from Spotify, a Spotify music tool is a must. Sidify is the most popular brand for downloading Spotify songs. It’s able to help you export Spotify songs as MP3/AAC/WAV/FLAC files to your local computer so that you can download, backup and transfer Spotify music for better enjoying.

Sidify works for both Spotify free and premium users. The biggest difference lies in the output audio quality. The program keeps the original output audio quality. If you are a Spotify premium subscriber, the highest output quality you could get is 320kbps. For Spotify free users, it’s limited to up to 160kbps as the originals.

Among all the Sidify Music Converters, Sidify stands out for its speed, complete ID3 tags as well as the stability. In addition, it offers good after-sales service – free updates and free technical support. The program offers free trial version, which limits users to convert the first three minutes of each song. If the songs you’d like to convert is within three minutes, the program is totally free for you. After all, it’s free to try. Why not download it to test out?

Sidify Music Converter

Is Music On Spotify Royalty Free

Music
  • Download Spotify songs as MP3, AAC, FLAC or WAV files.
  • Keep 100% original audio quality of Spotify.
  • Keep ID3 tags and metadata after conversion.
  • Free updates and technical support.

Part 4: Tutorial: How to Download Music from Spotify Free by Sidify

Sidify Music Converter is an easy-to-use program. It enables you to download songs from Spotify free to your local computer with three simple steps.

Step 1 Add Spotify songs to Sidify.

Click '+' button and you'll be prompted to drag and drop song or playlist from Spotify to the program. You can also copy and paste the link of Spotify song or playlist to Sidify.

Step 2 Customize Output Settings

Click 'Setting' on the upper right corner and you'll be directed to the Settings windows, where you can choose output format (MP3/AAC/WAV/FLAC), output quality (up to 320kbps) as well as the output path.

Here you can also customize how you'd like to name the output files (Track Number, Title, Artist, Album) and how you'd like to sort out the converted files (Artist, Album, Artist/Album, Album/Artist or None).

Step 3 Download Music from Spotify Free to Computer

Click 'Convert' button to start exporting Spotify music from Spotify Free to your local computer. After the downloading process is completed, you can click on 'Converted' to find the well-downloaded Spotify songs.


Video Tutorial: How to Download Music from Spotify (Free) to Windows PC


Conclusion

Spotify is a freemium service. Spotify users can access more than 50 million Spotify songs but are denied of playing Spotify songs offline. To download music from Spotify free, Sidify Music Converter is the best solution. It’s specially designed for exporting Spotify songs as MP3/AAC/WAV/FLAC files to your local computer. If you haven't installed the free trial version, try it now! If you've already tested it out and it meets your need, you can buy the full version to unlock the three-minute conversion limitation.

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