Music in videos can be just as important as the visual content. Find out why using free stock music isn’t actually a wise move for YouTube videos.

As a content creator, I’m sure you are already aware of just how huge YouTube is. As the second-largest site in the world (I seriously need to stop saying that), there’s some real competition. There are many ways you can promote your channel and increase views. You could utilise ending cards or create killer thumbnails in order to get your videos to rank highly and out-perform the competition. But, music is an essential tool for allowing your videos to be the best they can be.

The temptation to just opt for free stock music can be strong. If you’re an independent content creator, budgets can be limited, and perhaps you just don’t know where to find stock music otherwise. However, cutting corners isn’t the route to success, and you can definitely do better. Let us explain why you should avoid free stock music!

Risk of Copyright Issues

Something that all content creators should be clued-up on, but often aren’t, is copyright and music licensing.

Stock music, or royalty free music, is music that does not require royalties to be paid to the original creator for each use. Instead, a one off fee or a subscription will be paid. Or, you can dodge payment and plump for free stock music.

The problem with doing this is that you can never be completely sure that the stock music is in fact stock music. Music that is truly free of copyright or in the public domain is safe to use, and nobody can claim to own the rights to it and cause you issues.

If you end up using music that turns out not to be stock music, you could receive copyright claims on YouTube, and even copyright strikes. This is a pain in the bum, but can also be damaging to your channel and land you in trouble with YouTube.

Poor Quality

We’ve all heard the adage, “you get what you pay for”, right?

If you skip paying for stock music, it’s likely that the tracks you end up with are going to sound free. Sure, you might stumble upon some hidden gems. Riot Games just released a free album of copyright-safe tracks for creators, but this is far from the norm at the moment.

Investing many hours and loads of effort into your content only to spoil it with low quality, badly produced music would be a real shame. Bad music leaves viewers with a bad impression and will deter them from checking out your content in future.

Limited Choice

As briefly mentioned, Riot Games generously compiled a 37-track album of “safe to stream” music. But, this isn’t usual practice for developers and games companies. Therefore, finding music of this quality, with no copyright issues, and for free is super rare.

In fact, finding no-copyright music for free can be a challenge, period. This means you’re not left with an awful lot to choose from. You run the risk of using tracks that lots of other popular content creators are using. Not only could this look like you’re trying to copy them, but it’s also really boring for viewers.

Searching is Long

Adding to the fact that free stock music can be a challenge to find, it can take hours, even days to sift through and find decent tracks.

Most of the time, you’ll be trawling through YouTube search results, forums, Spotify playlists and flying blind. The only way to tell if a track is for you is to listen to it. Even scrubbing through tracks takes time, which, as all content creators will know, is precious and usually tight.

You’re Flying Solo

Settling for free stock music isn’t sounding so great about now, huh? On top of all these drawbacks, if you dodge paying for music you’ll be out in the wild on your own.

Without sourcing your music from a subscription service or reputable company, you’re denying yourself great customer service and support. If you happen to run into any copyright issues or unfamiliarly territory, you have to figure it out on your own. Again, this takes up your time and can actually be quite stressful.

What’s the Alternative?

By now, you’re probably thinking maybe you should get your royalty free music from somewhere trustworthy and legit. We don’t blame you.

So, if you’d like the security of customer support, guidance regarding copyright, quality assured music, and streamlined search functionalities, sign up to Synchedin today!

Discover a huge library of awesome stock music, covering a huge range of genres and moods. All tracks are moderated prior to upload, so you can rest assured that each one is a corker. Enjoy full claims control and help with YouTube related queries.

Subscribe from just $4.99 to access unlimited downloads of tracks, all with the sync license covered. Whether you’re creating content just for fun, or your videos are for commercial purposes, Synchedin has your back.