No copyright vs royalty-free (and three more labels)

The comparison

Label	Is it copyrighted?	Cost	Credit needed?	Commercial use
"No copyright music"	Usually yes; it's a search phrase, not a legal status	Varies	Depends on the license	Depends on the license
Royalty-free	Yes	Often a one-off fee or subscription, sometimes free	Depends on the license	Usually, within the license's terms
Public domain	No (expired or never existed)	Free	No	Yes
CC0	Waived as far as the law allows	Free	No	Yes
CC BY 4.0 (this site)	Yes, licensed openly	Free	Yes	Yes

"No copyright music"

This is what people type into a search bar, not a kind of license. In practice it means "music I can use without trouble". Some of what's labeled this way is properly licensed. Some is a re-upload by someone who doesn't own it, which is where most surprise claims come from. Treat the phrase as a starting point: find out who made the track and what license it's under.

Royalty-free

Royalty-free means you don't pay a royalty per use, per view or per copy. It says nothing about price or copyright. Many royalty-free libraries charge a one-off license fee or a subscription, and their terms can limit which platforms or projects you can use the music on, or what happens when a subscription ends. Read the specific license.

Public domain

Public-domain works have no copyright: it has expired, or it never applied. Copyright terms are long and vary by country, so for recorded music, public domain usually means old compositions or old recordings. Be careful: a new recording of an old piece has its own copyright, even if the composition is public domain.

CC0

CC0 is a Creative Commons tool for creators who want to waive their copyright and put a work as close to the public domain as the law allows. You can use CC0 works for anything, with no credit required (though crediting is still kind).

CC BY 4.0

CC BY keeps the copyright with the creator but grants everyone a free, worldwide license to share and adapt the work for any purpose, including commercially. The condition is attribution. That's a fair trade for most creators: one line of credit for a track you can use anywhere, forever. Every track in the 0copyright catalog is a Purrple Cat Self Release under CC BY 4.0, free to use on every social media platform. Purrple Cat's one rule: please don't release the tracks, or remixes, samples or covers of them, on streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music, because those releases are what cause false Content ID claims. The license explainer covers the details.

Which one should you use?

• You want zero paperwork: CC0 or public domain, if you can find a track you like and can verify its status.
• You want quality and don't mind one line of credit: CC BY. It's free, commercial use is fine, and the creator gets the credit.
• You need a contract, indemnity or exclusivity for a big client: a paid royalty-free or sync license may be the right tool, because CC licenses come "as is" with no warranties.

Red flags, whatever the label

• No artist name, or an uploader who clearly isn't the artist.
• "Free for YouTube" with no license named or linked.
• A license that changed after you downloaded the track. Keep a note of the date and source.
• A track you recognize from a major-label release, relabeled "no copyright".
• A "no copyright" track that's also for sale or streaming under someone else's name on Spotify or Apple Music. That's usually a re-upload, and the reason Purrple Cat asks people never to release its music, or remixes, samples or covers of it, on streaming services.

Questions

Keep reading

• CC BY 4.0, explained
• No copyright music for YouTube
• How to credit CC BY music
• Browse all 62 tracks