Adding a music clip to your audio or video project can make that project stand out and be noticed. You need to be aware though, that you can’t simply grab a clip of your favorite Top 40 song and use it on your latest Youtube video. Why? Because that’s illegal. Short and sweet. So what can you do?

Music and lyrics published before 1922 are in the public domain, but sound recordings of any music never go into public domain. You can record those old public domain songs yourself if you want. That can be used legally. Or you can record your own original music and use it however you want, of course. Anything else requires that you shell out some money to license something.

Unless you plan on using a lot of recorded clips, the pricing isn’t too bad, so it’s not a big issue. A one-time fee of around $20 is certainly doable, but of course, paying that kind of money many times would be prohibitively expensive for many of us. But if, like me, you only need one clip, then ponying up $20 isn’t too big of an issue.

So where do you get these clips? I bought mine at PD Info, and I also checked out Music2Hues, which I think may be affiliated with PD Info. I spent several hours on PDInfo’s downloads page, listening to clips from each of their categories.

So, now you know how to get your own cool music clips for your next project. Good luck!

(from Smash Mouth. "AllStar" Astro Lounge. Interscope Records, 1999.)

Posted on August 17th, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Tech Advice