Hello all. I get a lot of work producing for television and commercials. Recently I've been asked for some genres a bit outside of my wheelhouse. I've been looking into the sample/loop libraries that say royalty free. Are they really able to be used for commercial use if they say so? Or is there a catch I'm missing? Obviously I would purchase them legally so I own the license. Also I would be adding my own elements to the productions. Not just using "as-is". Has anyone used them successfully in this manner? Thanks for the help, as always..

 

Usually, every sample cd you download/buy has a license agreement included that gives you exact information on your question.
But I've never seen a commercial library that forbade commercial use.

 

Thanks very much.. that's what i figured, but someone once told me there's always a gray area with loops/licenses and broadcast. Not sure yet what that is, so just trying to cover my a$$ and ask some knowledgeable people. Thank you again. Much appreciated!

 

I know Big Fish Audio has some weird licensing but I think it's mostly for merging the tracks and uploading them to libraries... You should be fine as long as you don't re-merge the entire multitracks into one track and use that as-is.

More info:
http://vi-control.net/community/threads/whats-up-with-big-fish-audios-music-library-license.23872/

http://forums.taxi.com/when-are-loops-royalty-free-t7681.html

Do some research and ask each seller for the specifics before you buy.

 

Thank you very much. This was very helpful. I've always shied away from BFA anyway. Thanks again!

 

You need to know these things already. Most of the Big Fish Audio (in-house) libraries CANNOT be used for commercial production work. You need to purchase an additional and conditional license from them. There are a few others doing that as well (read some of the UELA's from British releases on Loopmasters). You will end up in court and it WILL be ugly. Every production of mine (that has commercial loops) comes with a copy of the EULA of the loops used and that's why I now create my own loops from scratch or just use the Apple loops in Logic to be safe. But that's only when the shitty quality is desired from loops. None of the major production houses even want loops especially the vocal sample ones because they're overused by amateur-level productions. They're not going to pay me $35,000 to hear the same loop in another tv commercial... it will be the last time I ever work with them not to mention they include a clause that will force me to repay them if any portion of my work is used elsewhere.

So, in effect... 95% of my work is all original including the sound design. The lawyers made me this way!

 

Understood. I rarely (if ever) use loops. And my commercial stuff is 100% original. I asked bc a client asked for some middle eastern sounds. I found a lib thats royalty free and allows for commercial use. Still feels a little odd but it seems that's what they sell them for, no? My plan is to build some stuff around the loops so it sounds more authentic. But being that I rarely need/use them commercially, I wanted to check with the AS crowd and get some comfort, haha. I know BigFish is weird and I get that. Not using BFA loops for now. I just want to make sure I'm not missing something about how most other loops are legally supposed to be used after purchase. All this helps very much, thanks again.