5+ Copyright Free Music Resources for Live Streamers

Looking for some Copyright Free Music for your live streaming content? I’ll tell you about a few that can get you up and running in no time!

Quick Links to Streamer Safe Music

Why You Can’t Use Just Any Music You Want

Well, for one, it’s illegal to use music resources that you don’t have the right to use. Additionally, using music not cleared for broadcasting rights will result in Twitch muting your Vods. No big deal, right?

Wrong!

The VOD mute is Twitch’s way of protecting themselves from legal action, but it was not enough to satisfy the RIAA, and they have been, as such, slammed with DMCA takedown notices en masse. Oh, and by the way, this protection does not extend to you.

Many streamers used to simply ignore this and “deal with the mute” because VODs didn’t hold much value to them. However, the fact is, by using music you do not have the right to use, you are breaking the law. Those who chose to walk this fine line found themselves severed from Twitch, even big partners.

Why You Should Utilize Stream-Safe Music on Twitch & YouTube

Do yourself a favor, and use Stream Safe music or No music at all.

Streaming music or content that you do not own the right to is asking for legal action. Who is to say the artist or interested party happens to stumble upon your clip using their state-of-the-art screening technology? If they see that you use their content, they are in their right to drop the hammer of law on you.

You’re breaking the law by using copyright-protected music, and if a bill passes, it could even land you some jail time. And NO, it is not considered fair use.

It Is Illegal to Stream Music on Twitch That You Don’t Own Explicit Permission to Use

The biggest point I’m going to present to why you should be using one of these streamer-safe music resources:

It is illegal to stream music on Twitch that you do not own the copyright or permission to. I know I’ve already said this above, but I really want to drive in the nail of how important this is for you to understand.

You need express permission from the copyright holders, which gets expensive fast. As you make money in the form of bits and donations, you fall under commercial webcaster status. This is partly what makes big-budget movie productions so darn expensive.

Using Copyrighted Music Punishes Your Audience

This muting of your recorded streams also punishes any potential new viewers who discovered you by a VOD of a past stream; Or a regular who wanted to catch the rest of your stream when they had to leave earlier than expected…

I personally had to do this when I was watching one of my favorite streamers play through Kingdom Hearts 3. Because the game itself had copyrighted music (Disney’s “Frozen” world), extremely long portions of that audio and his reactions were lost.

The result: A muted video and poor viewer experience. I actually had to catch a separate stream of it to fill that void of lost dialogue. You don’t want this, because they may find someone else they enjoy watching more.

Copyright Free Music Resources

So what can you do?

Well, you can use public-domain music assets, but those tend to be difficult to find. That leads me to the next 5 resources.

Pretzel Rocks – The Original Stream Safe Music Resource

Disclosure: Links to Pretzel Rocks are Affiliate links. Any purchases for Pretzel Rocks Premium made using these links will credit us with a commission.

As stated in the beginning and mentioned throughout the article, Pretzel Rocks was the first big effort to bring stream-safe music to Streamers on Twitch, YouTube, and many other platforms. Originally, the article was written to just promote that, but since then, many other artists have joined the fray.

Artists like “Miracle of Sound” make an appearance on there, and there are several genres available to stream. It even comes with some Twitch Integration, which states the name and artist of the song to your chat. This is required in the “free version” of Pretzel Rocks, as they have a sort of license similar to the “CC BY” license. Free to use if you give attribution. I use that license myself for the Free Sound effects & Alerts for Streamers that I made.

At any rate, If you’d like to see what this service offers, you can check them out and decide if this will be your next set of tracks for streaming on Twitch!

Regarding Glimesh – Pretzel Rocks is not Safe Yet

If you are streaming on the Glimesh platform, please be advised that you can not currently use Pretzel Rocks on that platform. This is due to the fact that the platform has no way of hooking up to the chatbot that is used to credit artists. Once this issue is resolved, Glimesh will be safe, but until then, use one of these other resources.

Streambeats – A Super Popular Stream Safe Music Resource

Next up on the list is the wildly popular StreamBeats, created by Harris Heller. Not only that, but it is a growing list of lo-fi beat tracks to be used in YouTube & Streaming services. In fact, he is constantly adding new albums.

You can learn all about it on the Streambeats website!

Backingtrack.gg – 80’s Metal-themed Music For Streamers

EposVox has been getting into the music for streamers’ business as well, and he has been telling people about this new album of 80s heavy metal music. This is a genre that has, for the most part, been unaddressed. Backing Track is filled with head-banging beats that are also ambient in nature – meaning that they are able to fit a lot of streaming situations well.

They are also, in my opinion, pretty good!

Wintergatan’s Music Is 100% Safe to Use on YouTube and Twitch

Martin Molin, the man behind the Marble Machine, recently released a video stating that all of the Wintergatan music is now free to use on YouTube and live-streaming platforms. Their music is pretty awesome, and I rather enjoy their MMX-building videos. Sadly, Martin has given up on the MMX, though he is currently experimenting with marble gates and optimizing for the best possible marble gate design.

Stream Radio: Stream Safe and YouTube Safe Music

I was recently contacted by a man by the name of Mike, who is the founder of Stream Radio. In his email, he assured me that the music he was linking to was DMCA Free for use on Twitch and YouTube specifically.

With that being said, I dug a little bit deeper into their agreement for myself: Specifically their Usage Policy.

I highly suggest reading the Master Use License, but from my understanding, it is perfectly safe for use as stream music. As to how good the tracks are? Been listening to them for the last hour, and I’ve added a few to my normal listening shuffle playlist on Spotify.

Tyler Lyle has just cleared all of his music as being Stream Safe

It seems that “Stream Safe music” is becoming a trend, actually. Tyler Lyle recently tweeted that all of his music is considered stream safe. So if you are looking for some Country style music, this might be a good option for you. So go on and stream it for your audience!

I hadn’t heard of Tyler until EposVox had tweeted about it earlier, so thanks to him for pointing it out! I can say that I enjoyed his work and can recommend them for your stream music needs.

More Stream-Safe Music: Andrew Griffin – Lost & Found

Another resource for Stream Safe Music has appeared! Now you have even more Chill LoFi beats to accompany you in your journey as a live streaming content creator! No Strings, No Worries, No Problem! DMCA Strikes are a thing of the past!

You can read the original post on r/Twitch here about it, Or navigate directly to Andrew’s Distrokid to get a nice sample of each track. I enjoyed listening to these 10 new tracks, and am excited to see what Andrew comes up with next!

JorDat also declared their work to be Stream safe and content creation friendly

A Tweet by JorDat, another musician, has declared that their content is stream-safe and free to use. More options to choose from is always beneficial, as everyone has different tastes in music! It is nice to see people hopping in on this.

Other Music sources: OpenGameArt

Here is another; Just be sure to look into the specific licenses involving the music.

• Open Game Art

Let us know if your music is cleared for use by streamers!

If you are a musical artist, I want to know if it’s cool to stream your musical creations! Feel free to contact me at any time to inform me about your work so we can let streamers know!