Is it allowed to add my own melody to a track from the Proud Music Library?

Background music for your own recordings

From time to time we get requests from interested people to add their own composed melody to a track from the Proud Music Library. That means, that the own melody is added as an overlay to the existing music. Some people also want to use an instrumental track as background music and then sing their own melody over it.

Allowed? Not allowed?

The use of a track for the above described use is allowed if the merged work is only used privately. Private means “in your own four walls”. Private publication is not possible. Anything that is published is no longer private. This also applies if you upload a video to e.g. Youtube or Vimeo and a) offer it there for public viewing or b) not list the video. Anyone who knows the link can pass it on or link to it, in short: distribute it. Therefore, lit. b) is strictly speaking also public and therefore not allowed for the time being.

Merged work (Music+New melody)

Now you could get the idea to buy a license and then it would be allowed to publish the merged work (track from the library + own melody). Unfortunately this is not so easy, because the Proud Music Library is not allowed to grant the right to do so. The permission for this is always given by the authors (creators) of the respective track or music title themselves. For this purpose, a separate contract must be concluded with the authors, since the new merged work is a new work, since the melody now has its own copyright, so that in connection with the music a co-authorship of the new work has arisen.

However, the solo must have a so-called creation level, otherwise “merely” a performance protection right has arisen. But also here you need the permission of the authors (creators) for the case you want to publish the new track.

In contrast: Composite work

With film works it is different. Here Proud Music grants a sync right. Here, permission is granted to combine the work [FILM] with the work [MUSIC] (more precisely: sound recording) in order to produce a new work (FILM plus MUSIC).

If you have any questions about licensing via Proud Music Library, just give us a call: +49 6132 43 088 30

Questions about commissioned production? Studio equipment or facilities? Quality?

Commissioned music productions

Commissioned productions

Although the Proud Music Library has a catalogue of several tens of thousands of finished music titles, every now and then the presentation of customers is so special that we also do commissioned productions. As a rule, the customer also commissions a commissioned composition at the same time.

The briefing

After a workshop with the orderer or customer, a layout is worked out as precisely as possible and fixed in writing (briefing). Here it is also clarified whether it should be a PRO-free-composition. This is the case if the authors have not concluded an agreement with a Performance rights organisation (PRO) or a collecting society (e.g. ASCAP, PRS, STEMRA, SOCAN, SIAE, SGAE, GEMA) with regard to the administration of mechanical reproduction rights and performance rights. Sometimes multiple layouts are created.

The pre-production

A layout is a pre-production of the commissioned composition in order to get an idea of the type and scope of the main production. In particular, the tempo, length and above all the instrumentation will be clarified. An arrangement is already being worked out to speed up the development process for the later main production.

The main production

The main production should be characterised by the artistic work, according to which the sound recordings are in the foreground here, i.e. the arrangement should no longer play a major role in this process, but clearly indicate the direction of the production. Studio time costs money and so do the musicians. Any “tinkering” with the arrangement can slow down the actual production, which can be cost-intensive.

The acceptance

After completion of the main production, the commissioned production is presented to the customer for acceptance. As a rule, there are hardly any improvements, provided that everything has already been sufficiently recorded in the planning. Since a contract production is a contract for work, the acceptance of the work is part of the main obligation of the work orderer. According to § 640 BGB (German Civil Code), a work is also deemed to have been accepted if the Contractor has set the Customer a reasonable deadline for acceptance after completion of the work and the Customer has not refused acceptance within this deadline, stating at least one defect.

Granting of rights

A commissioned production is worth nothing if the customer is not granted the necessary rights of use. These rights are called exploitation rights, which are usually granted exclusively in the case of a commissioned production.

Get in contact: [email protected]

Where to find Stock Music in the Proud Music Library

What Stock Music is

Stock Music is Production Music and an inexpensive alternative to the use of popular music in an AV production, e.g. music that is known through music charts. The use of well-known music titles is generally costly, as the publishers or authors are willing to pay for the rights of use due to their popularity. In some cases, rights holders do not release music catalogues at all.

Production music for commercial projects by Proud Music — Production Music

Where Stock Music is used

In addition, royalty-free stock music has been specially produced for use in audio and audiovisual productions (hence production music), i.e. for radio and television programmes, trailers, commercials and jingles, film and video game soundtracks, cinematic sounds, corporate & educational presentations, websites, computer games or otherwise. Multimedia applications (apps, DVD menu, radio play, etc.). Stock music is also often used as (partly gema-free) background music, e.g. behind a dialogue field or as underscore.

Earlier royalty-free stock music was usually shipped on CD in Red Book audio format as Production Music to allow easy cueing and fast synchronization. Today “Stock Music” is available for download.

Production music, stock music, archive music — Instrumental rock music for commercials (Radio, TV, cinema, Point-of-sale)

What role do Performance Rights Organisations (PRO) play in stock music

Most providers of stock music with professional sound have composers under contract who have a perceptual contract with a collecting society or so called PRO (PRO=Performance Rights Organisation, e.g. ASCAP, BMI, SOCAN, GEMA, SIAE, PRS or APRA. Stock music in this context is often referred to as royalty-free music, which should also not be confused with ASCAP-free music or PRO-free. For public performance or mechanical reproduction, additional fees are charged.

The music catalogue of the Proud Music Library also contains production music by composers who do not have a performing contract with a domestic or foreign collecting society. Music by these authors is referred to as Completely Royalty-free Music. Nevertheless, this repertoire of Stock Music of renowned artists from all over the world is hand-picked by our own Artist&Repertoire Management. Many of them have e.g. composed and produced music for AAA-Games.

Proud Music Library Preview Downloads

Where to find Stock Music?

In the music catalogue of the Proud Music Library you will find a lot of stock music. The portfolio of pre-cleared Production Music is very broad with 140 different genres. The selection of arrangements, instrumentations (ukulele, accordion, Mongolian horse-head fiddle) and instrumentations leaves nothing to be desired.

More than 11,300 music titles (as of Feb. 2019) are GEMA-free and marked as such in Proud Music’s Stock Music Library. The current overview (more than 33,500 tracks) can be found here!

Royalty-free music and production music — Proud Music Library (Royaly-free music and production music)

Could you do the research for me, I don’t have the time it takes?

Anyone looking for a suitable music title for a film knows the problem. Only 20 years ago, people were digging through countless CD catalogues, which took several hours.

Thanks to the (fast) Internet, the Proud Music Library was established in 2003 to reduce search costs for media professionals. We offer a comfortable search where the search filter can be set according to about 15 criteria. So far so good. But now we have more than 35,000 music titles in our program. That’s why we offer a free search service for music searches for advertising films, i.e. all films for which an advertising license is relevant. Simply send us your customer briefing and we will search for suitable titles free of charge. You will receive a search result either after one hour or at the latest after 24 hours.

Production Music, Stock Music, Royalty free Music and archive music in our Proud Music Library

What is a royalty-free stock music library?

Stock Music is an affordable alternative to the use of well-known music in a promotional film, corporate video or commercial spot.

It has been produced specifically for the use in audio and audiovisual productions. Stock Music is also very often used as background music in stores, hotels or airports. The Proud Music Library offers licenses for sound systems to use the music as background music.

Royalty-free Music for airports — Royalty-free Stock Music for airports, hotels and malls

In the past stock music was delivered on CD in the Red Book audio format to allow easy cueing and rapid synchronization. Today, simple download a stock music track online. The most tracks that are provided by stock music libraries are registered with a collecting society, for example, ASCAP, BMI, SOCAN, PRS, SIAE, PRS and APRA. For this there are extra fees for the public performance or mechanical reproduction.

Start to search directly here:

In the Proud Music Library you will find plenty of royalty-free stock music. About 1/3 of music (about 10,500 songs, Feb. 2018) is completely royalty-free stock music (PRO-free) and as such also featured.

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What is the “Online Advertising” license for?

Production Music – more important than ever

At the moment we are experiencing a whole new era in Production Music. Twenty years ago, pre-cleared licenses had their main market in providing music for commercials broadcast almost exclusively on TV or in the cinema.

The unstoppable change

Today, the focus has shifted dramatically to online usage in recent years. This does not include missions in short commercials, such as pre-, mid- or post-rolls. Especially viral videos make up the bulk here. Content marketing in the form of small video clips still needs (fortunately, ;-)) music as a important background element.

The license ‘Online advertising’ makes it possible for everyone

Therefore, we have developed the license ‘Online Advertising’, which allows the following uses:

Use of a song in one (1) social media video
Unlimited Time, wordwide
Applies to all social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Vimeo, etc.
The own website is of course not excluded.

Only additional uses (e.g., in-stream advertising as post-, mid-, or pre-rolls) or infomercials are not covered by this license.

Archive music is also known as stock music or production music. For further questions on the subject it is best if you write us at [email protected].

Who becomes the licensee when an agency researches music for its customers?

You can buy the license as a producer for your customer (invoice goes to you) and instruct us to register directly your customers as licensees in the license (the rights go to your customer). Or you can become licensee yourself (invoice and rights go to you).

royalty-free music and production music by Proud Music Library

How and in what formats will the sound files be delivered?

They will be delivered as high quality MP3 files and Wav-files via eMail download links:

CD-Wav, 44,1 KHz, 16bit, uncompressed
mp3, 320 kbit/s (best possible mp3 quality)
mp3, 128 kbit/s (ready for web use)

The WAVE file format is a container format. It is used for the digital storage of audio data. It is based on the Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF) defined by Microsoft for Windows. A WAVE file contains information about its format before the audio data.

It usually contains so-called PCM raw data. These are time-discrete and value-discrete representations of the temporal course of a signal. The quality of the sound then depends on the sampling rate (number of samples per time unit) and the resolution (bit depth). For compressed data, the method is also relevant, e.g. ADPCM or MP3.

In contrast to the similar AIFF format, WAV does not store ID3 tags.

Ses dosyalarÄ� nasÄ�l ve hangi formatlarda teslim edilecek?

EMail indirme baÄ�lantÄ�larÄ� ile yüksek kalitede MP3 dosyalarÄ� ve Wav dosyalarÄ� olarak teslim edilecektir:

CD-Wav, 44,1 KHz, 16 bit, sÄ�kÄ�ştÄ�rÄ�lmamÄ�ş
mp3, 320 kbit / s (mümkün olan en iyi mp3 kalitesi)
mp3, 128 kbit / sn (web kullanÄ�mÄ� için hazÄ�r)

I have not found what I was looking for. What do you offer?

If you have not found what you were looking for, please let us know. Just send us a short eMail to [email protected] or give us a call at: +49 (0) 6132 / 43 088 30. Being in constant touch with our composers, we can also offer short-term solutions. Like this, we hope to build up a library fitted to the your needs.

How do I get the best search results?

Three steps that lead to success

Choose only 2-3 attributes which are the most important to you at first. If there are too many results, you can finetune your search by adding further attributes. If you are searching for an attribute combination and the database cannot find any matching tracks it will ignore more and more attributes from right to left in the search interface, starting with tempo, then arrangement, then instruments and so on.

Music tracks for commercials — Proud Music Library for royalty-free music and production music

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