Adding Music To Your PodcastEarlier, I talked a little about adding music to your podcast, and I said it was complicated. So let me take a second to expand on that a little.

If you want to add music to your podcast, you can. Many podcasts use at least one piece of music at the beginning to make it sound more polished. I use music for the intro and outro to my current shows, but I have done many podcast episodes that had neither. I decide whether or not to use music based on the content. If the show is a 10 or 15-minute show, I may choose just to use intro music. If the show is longer than 15 or 20 minutes, I’ll use both intro and outro music. If the show is less than 10 minutes, I may choose not to use music at all or find a very short ‘stinger’ of 5 to 10 seconds. Because I use Adobe Audition, I can use a feature that allows me to take any music and ‘remix’ it to a certain length. This can take a 2-minute piece and shorten it to the length I need.

Before I break down the kinds of music you can use, I have to make something clear: You must have permission to use the music you play on your show. A good rule of thumb for me is that I’ve ever heard it anywhere other than a podcast or a YouTube video, I leave it alone. Don’t expect that you can ask for forgiveness and not permission. The podcast platforms can remove your show for breaking copyright. This is serious and can have legal ramifications for you. Would you please do your due diligence here?

CREATIVE COMMONS MUSICCreative Commons music is very widely used and can also be very widely misunderstood. I would not assume that because something says it’s Creative Commons, that you can go ahead and use it. There are different kinds of Creative Commons licenses. Some require attribution back to the composer. Some will let you use music for personal use and not commercial use. Please go to http://creativecommonsusa.org/ (creativecommonsusa.org) to read about the different kinds of licenses and how they affect your ability to use creative commons resources.

ROYALTY-FREEIn the past few years, there’s been a growth in the number of websites dedicated to pod-safe music. I use Epidemic Sound, which offers a monthly subscription for access to their library, and lifetime licenses on the music I decide to use. Other subscription-based sites are Storyblocks, Shutterstock, Artist.io, and Envato Elements.

These sites have what’s generally called ‘royalty-free music. That means if you buy the license to it, it entitles you to use it for the duration of the license. In the case of my Epidemic Sound subscription, it allows me to keep the license for anything I’ve used during my subscription. However, if you download something from Epidemic Sound and do NOT have a subscription, they will notify you that you don’t have permission. It’s generally good practice not to continue using tracks from a service if you let a subscription to that service expire. In any event, all these sites have terms and conditions. It’s become a joke that we skip past these when we sign up for something, but in this case, not knowing what those terms are can cost you your show. Know what the terms of service are for whatever music service you use.

PUBLIC DOMAINPublic domain music is music that no longer has copyright. In many cases, it happens because the person that held the copyright has passed away, and a certain amount of time has elapsed. That’s usually somewhere between 70–75 years, but it depends on the country.

However, the question of using a song that’s in the public domain can be a little tricky. Here’s a hypothetical. Let’s take the Hokey Pokey song. I have no idea whether that song is public domain or not, but for this illustration, let’s say it is. Jay-Z records the Hokey Pokey song and puts it on The Blueprint version whatever. In this case, Jay-Z now owns the rights to the Hokey Pokey song. Therefore, you wouldn’t be able to use the Hokey Pokey song without Jay-Z’s permission.

Generally, if you