It has happened countless times: a great video, full of good information, entertaining and dynamic, gets ruined by the absolute lack of sound. Shortly after, the user discovers that YouTube's Content ID system flagged a hit for just 30 or 40 seconds of music that someone registered as their own. The most effective way to avoid that is to use material that is royalty free, in the public domain, and/or under another permissive license. If you want music free to use on YouTube, the artist Antti Luode has shared more than 1,700 songs under CC 3.0, which you can download all at once or individually.
"Lisandro, why can't I use this particular song in this video I posted?" As always, the magic answer is "YouTube." There's an idea circulating on the Web that the Content ID system ignores clips shorter than 30 seconds, but many forums are full of cases where a block occurred for ten, or even five, seconds. Editing videos takes time, and the last thing we need in our lives is a copyright conflict triggered by "Manzanas, Bananas y Peras LLC" over eight seconds of the Happy Birthday song. The solution is to find a source that shares music free to use on YouTube, and this is one of them.
Free Music for Use on YouTube, Just a Couple of Clicks Away
This extraordinary work was made available by the artist and composer Antti Luode, who, despite his multiple health problems and a particularly hard life, managed to create more than 1,700 songs, all available under a Creative Commons 3.0 license. His music has been used in dozens of projects, ranging from the games Starship Theory and Taphouse VR to YouTubers with millions of views on their channels. If you want to access the material, all you have to do is click this link and download the 7 gigabytes of music in a zip file whose last update was on the 5th of September. Alternatively, you can explore the MP3s one by one by clicking here.
The Creative Commons 3.0 license means that the only request behind Luode's songs is attribution/recognition, although his official page implies that even that detail is optional. In short, if you're looking for music free to use on YouTube and find yourself a bit lost, Luode's songs definitely deserve your attention, and that goes beyond YouTube. If you work on an indie game and need a soundtrack, chances are you'll find something here. Don't forget that we also have a large number of free vector icons, and sound effects in case you need them.
