Does UDemy supply any backrground music for intro videos?

jpuopolo

Hi All,

Does anyone know where I can find some good background music for my intro video? Does Udemy have a library, or do people just go out and find backing tracks that work well?

Any pointers appreciated.

Thanks,
John

DamianMcKinnon

Hi John - not that i have ever seen. Maybe check out Pixabay's free music library or even the one from Youtube. Just be aware of the shorts policy - free use as long as the track is less than a minute.

Baghi823

No, certainly Udemy doesn't provide any music whatsoever. It's a marketplace, and it does give pointers about how to create a course, the rest is up to the author.

'' or do people just go out and find backing tracks that work well?''

Just to be clear, music is the exclusive property of the musician who wrote it. No one else. It's called 'intellectual property' because I can't touch it, that's all.

Udemy doesn't allow the author to put anything in the course that he did not create, or is now owned by him. In my 30 years experience as a pro musician, I have never seen any musician who allows others to use their music for nothing. Music takes work, just like any other tasks that aren't easy. Like Damian mentioned, there might be 'free' music libraries, but personally I am very skeptical, though I don't know anything about Pixabay. But really, who does anything for free? Perhaps a VERY few, mad people :)

We all know the saying 'there's no such thing as a free lunch', right?

As further clarification: all the musician has to do to create a legal copyright for his or her music, is to publish it somewhere. So for example if I have put it on Youtube and people can hear it, that means it's ALREADY copyrighted, and it does NOT mean that anyone can use it just because it can be 'freely heard'. Only I can use it for whatever purpose, because I created the music.

I am just saying this because people normally think that to copyright the music, one has to get big bucks lawyers from Warner Bros or Sony and pay a zillion dollars. That's not true at all, in fact it is very easy to create legal copyrights for written music: all that the musician has to do, is to publish it somewhere, it doesn't matter if it's on Youtube or Spotify, or if he's publishing it for zero dollars, or a million dollars: the copyright gets AUTOMATICALLY created, on the spot, without me doing a thing, simply because the music has been published somewhere out there, that someone can hear. The musician puts the music there only to be heard, not to be used by others, unless they have a written confirmation by the musician.

People normally think that music is just a sort of trifle that is very easy to do. It's not. In the past, IF they were lucky, musicians were sponsored by a record company who would provide everything needed to record and advertise the music; in exchange, the musician had to literally sell their soul, and be sucked dry by the record company, who is just an investor trying to make money (not that there is anything bad about investors necessarily, but that's how it works).

Today, most musicians forgo the record company and do it all themselves, but that means 10 times more work as the musician has to not only forge the skills to create music over a long period of time, they have to learn to be an audio engineer, mixing engineer, orchestrator, learn to play multiple instruments, etc etc.

Sorry for the long explanation. I am just saying how it works, in case anyone wonders about these mysterious music copyrights, etc.

Just because these aren't seen, doesn't at all mean they aren't there. They always are :)

Best wishes for your course.

Baghi823

there might be some of that AI stuff that creates 'music' with no copyrights. Of course, it would be a dumb robot 'writing music', and the results would probably be laughable, or cheesy, etc, if heard by real musicians, but the casual listener might not have all that discernment.

So you might be able to get a bit of passable background music that does the job, in this way? I don't know anything about any of this, but it's probably out there somewhere as is this whole AI hysteria about how it supposedly does everything.

I don't really keep up with the latest trends and tech, but what I wrote above holds true regardless of these trends, which are always changing. Maybe google 'AI royalty free music' ? Just an idea, I haven't tried it, etc.

Baghi823

another thing you could do, is head on Fiverr and get some custom made music to your specs. Of course, that's not free, but some musicians are willing to do it for a few bucks. The advantage is that you can specify the mood, etc.

Even then, you must ask if the music is copyrighted and if you can use it to sell your course, because the musician might agree to create the music for you and STILL retain the copyright: all it would mean is that they created the music for you, perhaps to put in a video of your birthday party or something, i.e. not for business purposes. But they might agree to that, too, but you have to clarify that with them. Some musicians clarify all this in their gigs, others don't, it's up to the buyer to clarify these details with them, just as if when I go to the store to buy a tool, I enquire if it does what I intend to do with it. It's not like the store owner reads my mind.

jpuopolo

Hi @Baghi823,

Thanks for the thorough explanations. The copyright issue is very real, and I respect it. In fact, I sit on the board of a company called Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), whose job is to act as an intermediary between rights holders (the authors of content), publishers, and consumers. I fully appreciate and respect all of you who can create art: writing, music, painting, etc.

Thanks,
John