Generally speaking, there is no easy nice path to use music in your podcast. You have to obtain the necessary rights for both the musical composition and the sound recording to play music in your podcast.

Here are the reasons: a podcast is viewed as a recording of the program, which involves the right to make “reproductions” of the musical work and the sound recording. As the music is combined in a podcast with words and other sounds in the recording, it also invokes right of the copyright holder to authorize “master use rights."

So what does it mean? Unless your budget is astronomical, you probably won’t be able to purchase a license for a popular song.

Are there any exceptions? What if I play 30 seconds of a popular song?

You may have heard of “fair use”, which permits you to use 30 seconds of music without copyright obligation. Unfortunately, The 30-second fair use rule is a myth. What constitutes fair use usually involves a case-by-case analysis. The court will consider four factors for a fair use defense: the purpose and the character of the use; the amount and substantiality of the used portion; the nature of the used portion of the work and the impact of the use upon the original work.

What are my solutions if I want to use music in my podcast?

1. The best advice we offer is to purchase a license from a stock audio website, such as Pond 5, Storyblocks, Epidemic Sound and Opuzz.com. Please make sure your obtained proper license for your use.

2. Find a local band or musicians, have them record their own music for your podcast. Get an agreement in writing where the musician agrees to license their rights to your podcast.

3. Use Creative Commons materials. Under a Creative Commons license, creators of content can share their work under clear and transparent terms. This means that you are free to use their music so long as you follow the rules set by the musicians.