How to legally use music in commercial videos

Why you should use background music

Many marketing studies and sites such as web design agency Liverpool have suggested that music can help to improve the success of a video marketing campaign. Here are reasons why you should include music in your promotional videos.

• Music helps to control perception. It can make your product or service be perceived as confident and trustworthy by the viewers. It can also make your product or service be perceived as comforting and worry-free.
• Music helps to grab attention even before anything happens in the video.
• Music helps to set the mood and creates an emotional connection with your target audience

Not every video needs music

As a marketer, web design agency Liverpool advice you that you shouldn’t think that music is a magic wand that will instantly lead to an increase in sales and clients. It is just a part of a complex marketing puzzle. The following are some two examples;

• Animated explainer video
• Recording of a conference presentation

You can’t use music at the conference presentation because it can distract the viewers. And watching an explainer animation in silence can’t feel right. When it comes to using music in your marketing video, use your judgment to decide whether it’s necessary or not.

Can you legally use copyrighted music in commercial marketing videos?

Whenever you are making marketing videos either for your own small business or create content for clients like web design agency Liverpool, you will find yourself in need of legal background music.

As a rule of the thumb, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner to use any copyrighted material, even when working on strictly non-commercial projects.

Mistakes that you should avoid

Web design agency Liverpool advises you to avoid the following mistakes;

• Using any music so long as you give credit
This is not good. Giving credit is nice and surely appreciated by the artist, but it grants you no special rights. The only exception is using a Creative Commons with Attribution license that requires you to give credit for you to use the music.

• Using any music as long as you don’t make a profit
It doesn’t matter whether you make money from your video or not; you still need permission if you are planning on using somebody else’s content.

• Using any music under the fair-use law
There can still be an argument that you can use copyrighted music under the fair-use doctrine of the U.S copyright law. If you are planning on using fair-use as a line of defence against copyright claims, you should keep in mind that fair-use mainly applies to a commentary, parody, news, and similar uses and can’t work for commercial videos.

Do you need to care about music licensing?

You should never use any unlicensed content especially music when working on a media project for your business or client. The common risks involved include;

  • Your video can get muted or removed by third-party ads.
  • The copyright owner can take legal action against you or your business.

So, web design agency Liverpool remind you that your reputation as a freelancer video editor can get compromised by negative feedback from clients learning that you put unlicensed content in their videos.

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