{"course":{"slug":"ai-video","title":"Video with AI","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/ai-video","level":"intermediate","track":"create"},"lesson":{"slug":"music-and-its-licence","title":"Music you could defend if somebody asked","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/ai-video/music-and-its-licence","position":46,"of":66,"minutes":9,"answer":"Music is the easiest part of a soundtrack to obtain and the easiest to get legally wrong, because a licence has to cover the specific use.","keyIdea":"Music is the easiest part of a soundtrack to obtain and the easiest to get legally wrong, because a licence has to cover the specific use, and AI-generated music sits on unresolved ground about ownership and training data."},"body":{"format":"markdown","text":"## Four sources, with what each actually permits\n\n**Commercially licensed libraries.** Artlist, Epidemic Sound, Musicbed and similar. You pay a subscription and get a licence covering specified uses. Read what it covers: many subscriptions license content published while you are subscribed and continue to cover it afterwards, some do not, and most treat broadcast and paid advertising differently from social posting. This is the safe route for client work and it costs money.\n\n**Creative Commons.** Free Music Archive, ccMixter, parts of Freesound, and a great deal of independent work. Free, and the licence terms vary per track and matter:\n\n- **CC0**: no conditions at all.\n- **CC BY**: attribution required, which means actually crediting the artist in the description or on screen.\n- **CC BY-NC**: non-commercial only. A client video is commercial. A monetised channel is commercial. This catches people constantly.\n- **CC BY-SA**: share-alike, which can carry obligations onto your finished work.\n\nAlways check the specific track's licence on the page you downloaded it from, not the site's general description.\n\n**AI-generated music.** Suno, Udio and their competitors, plus open models. Fast, specific to your piece, and legally unsettled: see below.\n\n**Music you make.** Free open tools cover this: **LMMS** for composition, **Audacity** for arrangement of loops, **Ardour** for a full multitrack session. If you play anything, a phone recording of it has no licence questions at all.\n\n## The unsettled ground, described rather than resolved\n\nAI music generation sits in the middle of a live dispute and it would be dishonest to tell you otherwise.\n\nThe disagreement has two parts. **Training**: whether using copyrighted recordings to train a generative model requires a licence. Major labels have brought actions against AI music companies; some have been settled or restructured into licensing arrangements, others continue. The answer differs by jurisdiction and no jurisdiction has produced a settled body of law.\n\n**Output ownership**: whether what the model produces is protectable, and who by. In some countries a work requires human authorship to attract copyright, which puts a purely prompted output on uncertain footing. Platform terms of service often purport to assign output rights to the user, which is a contract between you and that company, and is not the same thing as copyright existing.\n\nWhat you can do about it practically:\n\n- Read the specific service's terms for what it says about commercial use, and keep a copy of what it said on the day you generated.\n- Prefer models and services that state their training sources, where any do.\n- On client work, say in writing which music is AI-generated, so the client is making the decision with you rather than discovering it later.\n- Where the stakes are high (broadcast, a paid campaign, anything with real exposure) licensed library music is the boring choice and it is the right one.\n\nThis is a description of a disagreement, not advice about your situation, and the position in your country may differ from all of the above.\n\n## Platform detection is a separate problem\n\nIndependently of whether you have a valid licence, automated content-identification systems on the large platforms may flag your upload. A legitimately licensed track can be claimed because a rights database contains it; an AI-generated track can be flagged for resembling something.\n\nKeep the licence documentation (the receipt, the licence page, the track page) filed with the project. A dispute is resolved by producing it, and the process is much easier when the file is in the project folder rather than in an inbox from eight months ago.\n\n## Using music well, which is mostly using less of it\n\n- **Start it late.** Music from frame one is a common amateur signature. Let the piece begin with ambience and bring music in at the first real beat of the story.\n- **Duck it under speech.** Lower the music where anyone talks. A keyframed level change is enough; automatic ducking exists in Resolve's free tier.\n- **Cut picture to the music or music to the picture, and decide which.** Doing neither produces the characteristic feeling that the two are unrelated.\n- **Silence is a tool once the bed exists.** Pulling the music out at a moment is a strong effect, and it is available to you precisely because the ambience is still there underneath.\n\n---\n\nToday: find the licence text for whatever music you last used and read the commercial-use clause. Then file it in the project folder."},"check":{"question":"A freelancer uses a CC BY-NC track in a video for a paying client, crediting the artist in the description. What is the problem?","options":[{"text":"Attribution in a description is insufficient for CC BY-NC, which requires an on-screen credit within the work itself.","correct":false,"tempting":"Invents a placement requirement; the licence specifies attribution, not where it must appear."},{"text":"Creative Commons licences cannot be applied to sound recordings, only to compositions, so the track's licence does not cover the recording used.","correct":false,"tempting":"Fabricates a restriction; CC licences are routinely and validly applied to recordings."},{"text":"The share-alike obligation in the licence would require the finished client video to be released under a compatible licence, which the client is unlikely to accept.","correct":false,"tempting":"Describes the SA condition accurately and attaches it to a licence that does not carry it: BY-NC has no share-alike term."},{"text":"The NC clause excludes commercial use, and a video made for a paying client is commercial regardless of whether attribution was given.","correct":true}]},"prev":{"slug":"room-tone-and-spot-effects","title":"Why silence is the worst sound","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/ai-video/room-tone-and-spot-effects"},"next":{"slug":"sound-design-fixes-bad-physics","title":"The viewer believes the sound","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/ai-video/sound-design-fixes-bad-physics"},"authorship":"Founder and series editor: Dr Mustafa Mun. Written by AI models to a written standard. Exam keys checked blind by a second model: 3,665 of 3,666 agreed. Academic review invited.","review":{"status":"Draft, open for academic review"},"cite":"Addaly (2026) 'Music you could defend if somebody asked', in Video with AI. Edited by M. Mun. Addaly. Available at: https://addaly.com/learn/ai-video/music-and-its-licence (Accessed: 13 October 2026).","licence":{"name":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"},"reader":{"schema":1,"title":"Music you could defend if somebody asked","courseTitle":"Video with AI","module":{"index":5,"slug":"sound-and-speech","title":"The half of video that is not picture"},"answer":null,"keyIdea":"Music is the easiest part of a soundtrack to obtain and the easiest to get legally wrong, because a licence has to cover the specific use, and AI-generated music sits on unresolved ground about ownership and training data.","hero":{"kind":"plate","image":null,"alt":null,"caption":null},"blocks":[{"t":"h2","id":"four-sources-with-what-each-actually-permits","runs":[{"text":"Four sources, with what each actually permits"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Commercially licensed libraries.","b":true},{"text":" Artlist, Epidemic Sound, Musicbed and similar. You pay a subscription and get a licence covering specified uses. Read what it covers: many subscriptions license content published while you are subscribed and continue to cover it afterwards, some do not, and most treat broadcast and paid advertising differently from social posting. This is the safe route for client work and it costs money."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Creative Commons.","b":true},{"text":" Free Music Archive, ccMixter, parts of Freesound, and a great deal of independent work. Free, and the licence terms vary per track and matter:"}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"CC0","b":true},{"text":": no conditions at all."}],[{"text":"CC BY","b":true},{"text":": attribution required, which means actually crediting the artist in the description or on screen."}],[{"text":"CC BY-NC","b":true},{"text":": non-commercial only. A client video is commercial. A monetised channel is commercial. This catches people constantly."}],[{"text":"CC BY-SA","b":true},{"text":": share-alike, which can carry obligations onto your finished work."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Always check the specific track’s licence on the page you downloaded it from, not the site’s general description."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"AI-generated music.","b":true},{"text":" Suno, Udio and their competitors, plus open models. Fast, specific to your piece, and legally unsettled: see below."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Music you make.","b":true},{"text":" Free open tools cover this: "},{"text":"LMMS","b":true},{"text":" for composition, "},{"text":"Audacity","b":true},{"text":" for arrangement of loops, "},{"text":"Ardour","b":true},{"text":" for a full multitrack session. If you play anything, a phone recording of it has no licence questions at all."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"the-unsettled-ground-described-rather-than-resolved","runs":[{"text":"The unsettled ground, described rather than resolved"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"AI music generation sits in the middle of a live dispute and it would be dishonest to tell you otherwise."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"The disagreement has two parts. "},{"text":"Training","b":true},{"text":": whether using copyrighted recordings to train a generative model requires a licence. Major labels have brought actions against AI music companies; some have been settled or restructured into licensing arrangements, others continue. The answer differs by jurisdiction and no jurisdiction has produced a settled body of law."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Output ownership","b":true},{"text":": whether what the model produces is protectable, and who by. In some countries a work requires human authorship to attract copyright, which puts a purely prompted output on uncertain footing. Platform terms of service often purport to assign output rights to the user, which is a contract between you and that company, and is not the same thing as copyright existing."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"What you can do about it practically:"}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"Read the specific service’s terms for what it says about commercial use, and keep a copy of what it said on the day you generated."}],[{"text":"Prefer models and services that state their training sources, where any do."}],[{"text":"On client work, say in writing which music is AI-generated, so the client is making the decision with you rather than discovering it later."}],[{"text":"Where the stakes are high (broadcast, a paid campaign, anything with real exposure) licensed library music is the boring choice and it is the right one."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"This is a description of a disagreement, not advice about your situation, and the position in your country may differ from all of the above."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"platform-detection-is-a-separate-problem","runs":[{"text":"Platform detection is a separate problem"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Independently of whether you have a valid licence, automated content-identification systems on the large platforms may flag your upload. A legitimately licensed track can be claimed because a rights database contains it; an AI-generated track can be flagged for resembling something."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Keep the licence documentation (the receipt, the licence page, the track page) filed with the project. A dispute is resolved by producing it, and the process is much easier when the file is in the project folder rather than in an inbox from eight months ago."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"using-music-well-which-is-mostly-using-less-of-it","runs":[{"text":"Using music well, which is mostly using less of it"}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"Start it late.","b":true},{"text":" Music from frame one is a common amateur signature. Let the piece begin with ambience and bring music in at the first real beat of the story."}],[{"text":"Duck it under speech.","b":true},{"text":" Lower the music where anyone talks. A keyframed level change is enough; automatic ducking exists in Resolve’s free tier."}],[{"text":"Cut picture to the music or music to the picture, and decide which.","b":true},{"text":" Doing neither produces the characteristic feeling that the two are unrelated."}],[{"text":"Silence is a tool once the bed exists.","b":true},{"text":" Pulling the music out at a moment is a strong effect, and it is available to you precisely because the ambience is still there underneath."}]]},{"t":"rule"},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Today: find the licence text for whatever music you last used and read the commercial-use clause. Then file it in the project folder."}]}],"check":{"question":[{"text":"A freelancer uses a CC BY-NC track in a video for a paying client, crediting the artist in the description. What is the problem?"}],"options":[{"text":[{"text":"Attribution in a description is insufficient for CC BY-NC, which requires an on-screen credit within the work itself."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Invents a placement requirement; the licence specifies attribution, not where it must appear."}]},{"text":[{"text":"Creative Commons licences cannot be applied to sound recordings, only to compositions, so the track’s licence does not cover the recording used."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Fabricates a restriction; CC licences are routinely and validly applied to recordings."}]},{"text":[{"text":"The share-alike obligation in the licence would require the finished client video to be released under a compatible licence, which the client is unlikely to accept."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Describes the SA condition accurately and attaches it to a licence that does not carry it: BY-NC has no share-alike term."}]},{"text":[{"text":"The NC clause excludes commercial use, and a video made for a paying client is commercial regardless of whether attribution was given."}],"correct":true,"tempting":null}],"order":[2,3,1,0],"why":null},"prev":{"slug":"room-tone-and-spot-effects","title":"Why silence is the worst sound","minutes":8},"next":{"slug":"sound-design-fixes-bad-physics","title":"The viewer believes the sound","minutes":8}}}