CC BY 4.0, explained in plain English

The one-sentence version

You can use the music for anything, including commercial projects, as long as you give credit, link the license and say if you changed it.

Who owns the music?

Purrple Cat does. A Creative Commons license doesn't remove copyright. It's a public, standing permission from the copyright owner to everyone. That's why "no copyright music" is a nickname, not a description: the music has a copyright, and the license is what lets you use it.

What you're allowed to do

CC BY 4.0 gives you two broad permissions, worldwide and free of charge:

• Share: copy and redistribute the music in any medium or format. You can put it in a video, a stream, a podcast, a game build or an exhibition.
• Adapt: remix, transform and build on it. Cutting a track to 15 seconds, looping it, changing its tempo, layering it under dialogue and syncing it to picture all count as adapting. Purrple Cat only asks that remixes, samples and covers aren't released on streaming services (see below).

Both apply for any purpose, even commercially. Ads on your video, sponsorships, a paid game, a client's promo: the license doesn't distinguish between commercial and non-commercial use. (That's the difference from CC BY-NC licenses, which forbid commercial use.)

What you have to do in return

The license's conditions are in Section 3, and for a piece of music they come down to three things:

1. Credit the creator: name Purrple Cat.
2. Point to the license: say it's CC BY 4.0 and include a link (or the URL) to the license, where that's reasonably practical.
3. Say if you changed it: if you edited or remixed the track, indicate that. "Edited" or "remixed" is enough.

The license lets you do this "in any reasonable manner based on the medium". A video description, a stream panel, a game's credits screen and a podcast's show notes are all reasonable places. Naming the track title isn't strictly required by version 4.0, but it is good practice and it helps viewers find the song. Our credit guide has exact lines for each platform.

What you can't do

• Imply endorsement. The license doesn't let you suggest Purrple Cat sponsors, endorses or is connected to you or your project.
• Add restrictions for others. You can't put the music under terms or technical measures that stop other people from using it under CC BY too. Using it inside your own copyrighted video is fine. Trying to claim exclusive control over the track itself is not.
• Pretend you made it. Leaving off the credit, or presenting the track as your own, breaks the attribution condition.

Where you can use it, and the one place you can't

Use it on every social media platform: YouTube (videos, Shorts and livestreams), TikTok, Instagram and Reels, Facebook, X, Twitch, Snapchat and the rest, with credit. The license isn't tied to any one platform, so new apps are covered too.

Purrple Cat has one rule on top of the credit: Please don't re-upload or release the music on streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music or Deezer, through DistroKid, TuneCore or any other distributor, whether as-is, sped up, slowed, in a compilation, or as a remix, a track that samples it, or a cover. Those releases are what cause false Content ID claims on other creators' videos. It fits the license, too: distributors generally require you to own or control the rights to what you release, and a CC BY license gives you neither ownership nor exclusive rights.

Content ID and fingerprinting

Platforms like YouTube match uploads against reference files from rights holders (How Content ID works). Purrple Cat Self Releases are not registered in Content ID and never will be, so a claim on one of these tracks never comes from Purrple Cat. That's also why you shouldn't register CC BY music in a fingerprinting system yourself: YouTube's Content ID eligibility rules require exclusive rights to the material, and a CC BY license isn't exclusive. If a third party ever falsely claims a track from this site, dispute a Content ID claim and quote the license and your credit. False claims are dealt with promptly once they're reported.

What the license doesn't cover

• Trademarks and personality rights. The license covers the music's copyright, not the Purrple Cat name as a brand or logo.
• Album art. Covers shown on this site are there to identify each release. The CC BY license on this site is about the music.
• Warranties. Like all CC licenses, CC BY 4.0 is offered "as is". That's standard, and it's why crediting and keeping a note of where you got a track is good practice.

Can it be taken back?

No, not from you. Per the Creative Commons FAQ, CC licenses are not revocable: once you've received the music under CC BY 4.0, you can keep using it under those terms. The creator could stop offering it in future, but that doesn't cancel uses already made under the license.

If you break a condition (say, you forgot the credit), your rights under the license end, but Section 6 says they're reinstated automatically if you fix it within 30 days of discovering the problem. So if you spot a missing credit, add it.

CC BY versus the other Creative Commons licenses

CC BY is the most permissive license that still asks for credit, which is why it suits creators: there's nothing to calculate and nothing to pay.

Questions

Keep reading

• No copyright music for YouTube
• How to credit CC BY music
• No copyright vs royalty-free
• Browse all 62 tracks