In this episode I am talking about my music licensing and I have marked all of my songs as free on the helipank.ee website.
But first, I must state that I have marked all of my songs as free on the helipank.ee website. Not only is it free, but it also comes with a creative commons zero license. So, why is that the case?
I should clarify - the creative commons zero license is one of the most lenient, allowing you to use music in any way you wish. My music can be edited, sliced, rearranged, and used in a variety of ways. There are not any restrictions.
The first reason is that helipank.ee serves as a kind of tool for me to save all of my background music in one place and to find appropriate tunes for my work. You could wonder if it wouldn't be simpler to create a folder on my computer and search within it.
No
I have a few clients whom I assist in finding music for their podcasts. So, helipank.ee is a music style selector. They can find the music they like, and I can create podcast music for them based on their choises.
As a result, this isn't only for me; it's also for my clients.
The second reason is that I have a lot of background music that I haven't used yet. I occasionally use a track in my own projects, and I occasionally compose a track for a client, but the customer is unlikely to buy the music. He only wanted a track for his video, which I also made. It's the type of music that's only played once and then forgotten about.
Sometimes I'll make some versions of potential music for a project, but only one of them will be used. After that, I usually polish the unused music for use as background music.
My belief in free music is the third factor. If I've composed a background track, I'd like to share it with anyone looking for music to use in their projects. Several times throughout my years at an advertising agency, I was in a scenario where I needed to select a background music track for a presentation or a video. Such music is usually accessible on huge music sites like audiojungle.net.
There are many music stocks available on the internet, most of which specialize in mainstream music. For them, the best music is the music that sells the most. If you're a musician like me who doesn't make mainstream music, you'll end up on the last few pages. Or, in my case, being repeatedly rejected when attempting to upload my music to the Soundstock website.
The fact that no one brought my music is the final reason for me giving my music away for free. This is a little funny fact. Nowadays, you must do a lot of advertising to sell your music. Yes, I worked in advertising, but making music was always a free choice for me, and I just didn't fit into any particular genre to consider my music as a product. I have a few CDs that I released, but they don't sell as well.
For me, Helipank.ee is a bit of a grey area. This isn't standard stock music, but it's also not an experimental or too creative sound that shouldn't be used in commercial projects or podcasts.
I recently purchased a new computer and installed Manjaro Linux distribution on my old one. Exploring the world of open source software inspired me to create music that is also available for free. As a result, I owe Linux and its community thanks for inspiring me to freely distribute my music.
Now it's time to talk about the licensing. Stock music is frequently released under a royalty-free license. It implies that once you've bought a music, you're free to do whatever you want with it. There are limits about how and where you can use it, so don't just do whatever you want. There are frequently additional restrictions, and you must always be accurate and read all of them. I am not opposed to copyright or the payment of royalties for music. But, in my case, it's lot easier to give away my music than it is to start digging up rules I don't understand.
The Creative Commons license comes in a variety of flavors. In some circumstances, you must provide credit to the author. Please accept my apologies, but I do not believe in crediting. Consider a studio worker and the project comes close to deadline. He finds a nice tune for the project, and I'm not sure he'll mention the track's author somewhere. In some circumstances, the author's name could be hidden among other names in a brief sentence. It works in some cases and some of the time it doesn't. Do you suppose I'll run a background check on everyone who utilizes my music in a podcast or video? No! For that, I'll need to engage a copyright specialist, but who will pay his or her salary?
Helipank.ee is both my showcase and a free music service for everyone who finds music they want. If you like some music but want to make some changes to it, I can even help you develop some similar music to suit your needs. This will be paid work.
Link to the background music of this episode:
