Free music or libre audio is legally free music that, unlike commercial music, can legally be copied, redistributed and modified for whatever lawful purpose. So free music is either completely free or under a free licence by the copyright holder or the artist themselves, most often as a means of publicity. The major difference between commercial music and free music is that the former does not require an agreement for usage or license before being made available to the public. On the other hand, commercial music requires an agreement before being sold, while free music is available for download without any cost to the user.
Most of the music that is available on the Internet has been obtained from libraries or organizations that charge a royalty to make the content available to the public. These libraries or organizations must charge a fee to make their content available, because they must maintain the content and ensure that it is preserved as well as protected from illegal distribution. This requirement serves the legal purpose of making sure that the content creators themselves are financially rewarded when their works are used legally. However, in order to use this content, royalty free music needs to be created in the form of tracks that are to be freely shared and distributed.
A very popular Free Music option that is growing increasingly more common on the Internet is the usage of podcasts. Podcasts are self-contained segments that can be downloaded and listened to online. One example of a podcast is the podcast for the hit radio show talk show "The Big Bang Theory" on Yahoo! Radio.
Almost every popular website has a podcast section that features talk shows and musical performances. In addition to providing a way for people to legally download music tracks, podcasting allows the artists and the producers of the shows to maximize exposure by using one music track and including associated sound effects and interviews on each episode. This unique technique is commonly referred to as "music track licensing". Simply put, by using one music track, the producers of the show can legally charge for sound effects and music to be played on their shows. The advantage to the artist is that he or she can legally gain financial rewards for their music without having to compensate the producer of the tracks.
Perhaps the most famous example of this particular royalty-free music method is the song by Adele called "A Day in the Life". When you listen to this track on the radio you hear nothing but Adele's voice. Yet, when you download the MP3 file from the iTunes Store you hear her voice in your computer screen sounding almost exactly like the singer. So even though Adele never actually sung this particular song herself, the recording company that she works with pays her millions of dollars every year to license the use of the recording in an ad campaign.
There are other artists like Rihanna, Beyonce, and Lady GaGa who all have their own music libraries of royalty free music on their websites that they license to others to use in ads, videos, and other promotional uses. Sometimes it pays the artist directly to license the tracks, while in other cases it is the record label that pays the artist. This process allows the artist more money overall because the record labels typically get a bigger cut than the individual artist does. So in essence, the more streams of Adele's music that are being used, the more times the producer of the track pays the owner of the rights to the song a fee. Royalty licenses for sound effects on tracks allow the average Joe to create his or her own personal sound effects library full of royalty free music.
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