- Why the platform you upload to changes everything
- The actual free sources worth using
- A worked example: the 45-second Reel problem
- A quick licence-check routine that takes two minutes
- The bit most guides skip
- What to do if you are still not sure a track is safe
- Frequently asked questions
- Sources worth reading
The short version: The best free background music for YouTube and Instagram comes from the YouTube Audio Library, Pixabay Music, Free Music Archive, and Uppbeat's free tier, but "free" only protects you if you check the exact licence terms on each track, not just the name of the site. Instagram has its own separate in-app music library which works differently to anything you upload as a file. Most creators pick a track, upload it, and never check whether the licence still holds once the video moves to a different platform, which is exactly where the strikes come from.
Why the platform you upload to changes everything
YouTube and Instagram do not treat music the same way, and that single fact causes more copyright headaches than anything else on this topic.
On Instagram, if you use the in-app music sticker or the Reels audio library, Meta has already cleared the licence for you, for use inside Instagram. The moment you export that same video and repost it to YouTube or TikTok, the licence often no longer applies, because it was only ever cleared for Instagram's own player.
On YouTube, there is no in-app music sticker for standard uploads. You need a file, downloaded from somewhere, with a licence that covers commercial use, monetised videos, and re-uploads across platforms if you plan to repurpose the same clip.
So the question is not really "where do I get free music" on its own. It is "where do I get free music with a licence that covers where I am going to put this video."
The actual free sources worth using
- YouTube Audio Library - built into YouTube Studio, roughly a thousand tracks, all cleared for use on YouTube specifically, some require attribution in your description and some do not. Filter by "no attribution required" if you want zero admin.
- Pixabay Music - tens of thousands of tracks, free for commercial use, no attribution legally required though it is polite to credit the artist in your description.
- Free Music Archive - a mixed bag, some tracks are fully free, others are Creative Commons with attribution or non-commercial restrictions, so you have to read each licence tag individually rather than assuming the whole site is safe.
- Bensound - free with attribution for personal and small business use, paid licence removes the attribution requirement, a common model worth understanding because it appears across dozens of sites.
- Uppbeat - free tier gives you a limited number of downloads a month with a credit line required in your caption, paid tier removes that limit and the requirement.
- Mixkit - free stock music with a simple licence, no attribution needed, smaller library but useful for quick corporate or explainer style backing tracks.
Epidemic Sound and Artlist are worth knowing about even though they are paid, because a lot of creators assume they are free after seeing them mentioned in tutorials. Both offer short free trials, not free libraries. If you see a YouTuber crediting Epidemic Sound in their description, they are very likely on a paid plan, not using a free tier.
A worked example: the 45-second Reel problem
Say you run a small candle business and you are filming a Reel of a new scent range being poured and packaged, roughly 45 seconds, going out on Instagram and then cross-posted to YouTube Shorts the same week.
You pick a track from Instagram's own music library because it sounds warm and matches the mood. Inside Instagram, that is completely fine. The moment you take that same exported file and upload it to YouTube Shorts, the licence does not travel with it. YouTube's Content ID system may well flag it within hours, mute the audio, or in some cases block the video in certain territories.
The fix is not complicated but it does mean an extra step. For any video going on more than one platform, choose your track from a source that explicitly says its licence covers YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok separately, such as Pixabay Music or the YouTube Audio Library. Download the file once, use it everywhere, and you only have to check the licence a single time rather than per platform.
A quick licence-check routine that takes two minutes
- Read the actual licence page for the track, not just the homepage of the site, sites often mix free and restricted tracks together.
- Check whether attribution is required, and if so, copy the exact wording they ask for into your caption or description word for word.
- Check whether "commercial use" is explicitly mentioned, some Creative Commons licences are non-commercial only, which matters the moment you sell anything in that video.
- Check whether the licence names specific platforms, some free libraries only cover YouTube and say nothing about TikTok or Instagram.
- Save the licence page as a screenshot or PDF before you publish, so if a claim comes through later you have proof of where the track came from and what it allowed.
That last step matters more than most guides admit. Content ID and Instagram's own rights manager both make mistakes, and they flag free, correctly licensed tracks fairly often, simply because the same audio fingerprint has been misused by someone else somewhere in the world. Having your own screenshot of the licence is what turns a dispute from a week-long back and forth into a five-minute resolved claim.
The bit most guides skip
Every list like this points you to the same six or seven sites, which means thousands of other creators are pulling from the exact same shallow pool of "no attribution required" tracks. Scroll through enough small business Reels and you will hear the same three Pixabay tracks on rotation. That is not a copyright problem, it is a differentiation problem, and it is one nobody mentions because it does not sound like useful advice, but it affects whether your video stands out in a feed full of near identical audio choices.
If your content depends on sounding distinct, and you post often enough that the same free tracks start turning up under your competitors too, it is worth looking at AI-generated music instead of stock libraries. I have written a full breakdown of where to generate AI music for free, which gives you a way to produce a track nobody else has, rather than the same loop everyone downloaded from the same free site this month.
Want AI doing the heavy lifting in your marketing?
I build the systems that handle the boring 80 percent, so you get your week back. Done properly, with the human kept in.
Music is only one part of making a short video watchable. If you are cutting the clip together, my guide to where to edit video for free covers the editors that will let you layer a music track under your voice without the free tier locking the export behind a watermark. And if the video includes any speech at all, adding captions matters more than the music choice does for watch time, which is exactly what I cover in free AI subtitle generators for captioning videos.
What to do if you are still not sure a track is safe
If you have any doubt at all, the safest habit is to keep a simple spreadsheet with four columns: track name, source site, licence type, and date downloaded. It takes ten minutes to set up and it means that if a claim ever comes through on any video, you are not hunting through your downloads folder trying to remember where a file came from six months ago.
For creators who narrate over their footage rather than relying on trending audio, it is also worth knowing your voice track itself carries no licensing risk at all, since it is yours. If you record voiceovers regularly and want to speed that process up, my piece on where to clone your voice with AI for free is a practical next step once the music side is sorted.
And if you ever need an exact transcript of a track's spoken intro or a voiceover you have already recorded, for repurposing into a caption or a blog post built around the video, where to transcribe audio to text for free covers the tools that do that without a subscription.
For the rest of the series, see the Instagram Help: 81 Guides to Followers, Hashtags, Money, Accounts and Fixes. Build the tag list with the free tool that builds a YouTube tag list.
Frequently asked questions
Is YouTube Audio Library free forever?
Yes, tracks in YouTube's own Audio Library inside YouTube Studio stay free for as long as you keep the video published, with no recurring cost, though some tracks require an attribution credit in your description which you must keep in place, not just add once and remove later.
Can I use Instagram's music library on a video I also post to YouTube?
No, not safely. Instagram's in-app music library is licensed for use inside Instagram only, and exporting that same clip to YouTube or TikTok usually means the licence no longer applies, which is why cross-posted videos get flagged more often than single-platform ones.
What happens if free music still gets flagged by Content ID?
It happens more than people expect, even with correctly licensed tracks, because the same audio fingerprint sometimes gets misused elsewhere and triggers an automatic claim. Keep a screenshot of the original licence page from the day you downloaded the track, so you can dispute the claim quickly rather than losing monetisation while it gets sorted.
Do I need to credit the artist even on sites that say "no attribution required"?
Legally no, if the site's licence explicitly says attribution is not required, but crediting the artist anyway in your caption or description costs nothing and is a decent habit if you are building an audience who might one day want their own free background music, since it points them to the same sources you used.
