That second question has two parts: who owns the song, and whether any licence you hold covers what you're doing with it. The methods below answer both. Rules here are for the United States; other countries have different terms.
A song has two copyrights
Before you check anything, it helps to know that one track carries two separate copyrights. The US Copyright Office treats them as different works:
- The musical work (the composition): the melody, chords and lyrics. Songwriters and their music publishers usually own this.
- The sound recording: one particular recorded performance of that composition. The artist's record label or distributor usually owns this.
The Copyright Office's own example is "Respect": the song is one work, and Aretha Franklin's recording of it is another.
This matters for creators in two ways. First, to use a commercial track in a video you'd need permission for both. Second, re-recording a song yourself doesn't get you out of it. A cover is a new sound recording that you own, but the composition still belongs to the songwriter.
When a song is in the public domain (2026)
Copyright doesn't last forever, but it lasts a long time. In the US, works published in 1930 entered the public domain on January 1, 2026, after their 95-year term ran out. So as of 2026:
- Compositions first published in the US in 1930 or earlier are in the public domain. For songs, the date that counts is usually when the sheet music was published, not when a recording came out. A song recorded in 1930 but first published as sheet music later may still be protected.
- Sound recordings follow different rules. Recordings made before February 15, 1972 were brought under federal law by the Music Modernization Act in 2018 (the part called the Classics Protection and Access Act). Recordings first published before 1923 entered the public domain at the end of 2021. Those published from 1923 to 1946 are protected for 100 years after publication, so 1925 recordings entered the public domain in 2026. Those from 1947 to 1956 get 110 years, and the rest of the pre-1972 recordings are protected until February 15, 2067.
The catch: a public domain song doesn't make every recording of it free. A 1928 composition recorded by an orchestra last year is a new sound recording with its own copyright. If you want public domain music for a video, you need an old composition and either a public domain recording or one whose licence allows your use.
Five ways to check a specific song
1. Identify the recording
If you don't know exactly what's playing, start there. A clip of background music in a vlog, a track from a client's footage, a song someone sent you without a name: you can't look up rights for a song you can't name.
Our free music copyright checker does this from your video or audio file. It cuts a 12-second clip in your browser, identifies the recording, and returns the title, artist, label or rights holder, release year and ISRC. It also labels the result High risk (a commercial release), Check license (production-library music) or No match. If you're posting to a specific platform, the YouTube copyright checker and TikTok copyright checker pages explain what those platforms do with a match.
2. Look up who owns the recording
Once you have a title and artist, find the release details:
- The label and © / ℗ lines. Streaming services and digital stores show the label, often with a ℗ line for the sound recording owner.
- The ISRC. The International Standard Recording Code identifies one specific recording. It's how you tell a 1960s original from a 2019 remaster or a cover.
- The songwriters. Liner notes and credit pages on streaming services usually list them. Those are the people, or their publishers, who own the composition.
A major-label or distributor release means you'd need a licence from them. Most creators can't get one for a single video, which is why the realistic fix is to replace the track.
3. Search the US Copyright Office records
The Copyright Office's Copyright Public Records System lets you search registrations and recorded documents from 1978 to now, and it includes images of older card catalog records. For registrations from 1870 to 1977, there's the Virtual Card Catalog.
Two limits make this a supporting check, not a deciding one. Registration is voluntary, so a song with no registration can still be fully protected. And a registration tells you who registered a work, not whether you may use it.
4. Read the licence for library or stock music
If the track came from a music library (stock music sites, a platform's own audio library, a creator subscription), the licence is the whole answer. Read it for:
- which platforms and uses it covers (personal social posts, monetized videos, ads, client work)
- whether it covers the channel or account you're posting from
- what happens when your subscription ends: are videos you already published still covered?
- whether you need to credit the artist, and how
Keep a copy of the licence or a download receipt. If a video gets claimed later, that's what you'll use to dispute it.
5. Check Creative Commons terms
Some music is released under a Creative Commons licence. All six CC licences require you to credit the creator (that's the BY element), and the extra elements narrow what you can do:
- SA (ShareAlike): if you adapt the work, share your version under the same licence.
- NC (NonCommercial): only uses not primarily aimed at commercial advantage or money. A monetized channel or a sponsored post may not qualify.
- ND (NoDerivatives): no adapted versions. The version 4.0 licences say that music synced in timed relation with a moving image always counts as an adaptation, so an ND track can't go under your video.
The six licences are CC BY, BY-SA, BY-NC, BY-NC-SA, BY-ND and BY-NC-ND. CC0 is different: the creator gives up their rights, and credit is optional. Check that whoever applied a CC licence actually owned the music. Re-uploads of commercial songs with a CC label are common, and the label doesn't make them licensed.
Royalty-free is not copyright-free
These sound alike and mean different things:
- Copyright-free or public domain: nobody owns the work any more, or the owner gave up their rights (as with CC0).
- Royalty-free: the work is still copyrighted, but the licence lets you use it without paying per play or per view. You might pay once, pay a subscription, or pay nothing, but there's still a licence with terms.
Most music marketed to creators is royalty-free, not copyright-free. That's fine, as long as you use it the way its licence says.
Fair use is not a safe harbor for background music
Fair use is a real part of US copyright law. It's also decided case by case. The US Copyright Office says there is no formula that guarantees a use is fair, such as a set number of seconds or a percentage of a song. Courts weigh four factors: the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the work, how much was used, and the effect on the market for the original.
Background music for a vlog, a montage or a product video rarely fits. You're using the song for the reason it was made, to set a mood, which is a use the rights holder could have licensed. And automated systems like Content ID don't weigh fair use at all when they match. If you think your use is fair (commentary on the song itself, for example), that's an argument for a dispute, and for a lawyer if it goes further. It doesn't stop the match.
Common myths
- "Under 30 seconds is fine." There's no such rule. Fair use has no fixed length, and matching systems can match short clips.
- "I gave credit." Credit isn't a licence. It's only required on top of one, under licences like CC BY.
- "I bought the song." Buying or streaming a track lets you listen to it. It doesn't license you to publish it in a video.
- "I'm not making money from the video." Non-commercial use can still infringe. It can make a fair use argument a little stronger, nothing more.
- "No © symbol, so it's free." Copyright exists without a notice and without registration.
- "I found it on YouTube with 'no copyright' in the title." Anyone can write that. Check who uploaded it and whether they actually own the music.
- "No match means it's safe." A checker that finds nothing has only told you it didn't recognize the recording. Covers, unreleased tracks and heavily edited audio can be missed. The copyright detector page explains what fingerprinting can't catch, and our accuracy page shows how it performed in testing.
If you can't confirm you're allowed, replace it
When you can't find a licence that covers your use, swapping the track is almost always quicker than proving you're allowed. Use music from a library whose licence fits your platform, the audio library built into the platform you're posting to, or music you made. Then run the finished file through the checker once more before you post, so the replacement is the only music in it.
This guide is general information, not legal advice. If a lot depends on one song, such as a paid campaign or a film release, talk to a lawyer who handles music licensing.