Frequently Asked Questions

For individual track and sound effect purchases, we accept PayPal and all major credit cards, including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, JCB, Discover, and Diners Club.

For subscriptions, we only accept the above credit cards. Sorry, at this time, we do not accept PayPal for our subscription plans.

All the cue sheet information is available on your download page under MY MUSIC in your account. Each track has its own cue sheet information available.

Just login and navigate to your purchased products. There you will find a link next to your licensed music that says "Cue Sheet Info".

A cue sheet contains details of all the music and how it's used in a media production. It is distributed to Performing Rights Organizations (PROS). The PROs will use this information to identify which composers and publishers should receive performance royalties. If you need to learn more, we wrote a comprehensive guide on how Cue Sheets and Performance Rights Organizations work. Please let us know what you think!

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Yes, because this has to do with the royalties paid to composers through Performance Rights Organizations (PROs) like ASCAP and BMI. You won't have to pay these royalties; TV networks and other broadcasters do.

Submitting a cue sheet is the right thing to do because it's one-way composers like ours get paid for their work.

Short answer: Individual purchases are more expensive but have no strings attached. Subscription plans are cheaper, but you must stay subscribed to keep using music for future projects.

Long answer: When you make individual track purchases, you pay a straightforward $39.95 per music track and $2.95 per sound effect. That payment gives you unlimited usage for life. There are no restrictions on how or where you use those tracks. The license lasts forever. You can use the music in as many projects as you like.

Subscriptions are more affordable. They're priced at $19.99 per month or $199.99 per year (when you subscribe annually, you get two months free). However, subscriptions only allow you to create with and publish our music while you are subscribed. Once you end your subscription, you can no longer use the music for new projects nor distribute previous creations to new channels. However, material that you published while subscribed will remain licensed in perpetuity.

This means you accidentally downloaded the demo version of the track. So not only does it have the voice-over, it’s encoded with poor quality.

You paid for full quality! To get the full quality track and no voiceover wordmark, download from the MY MUSIC section of your account here.

You can certainly sub-license your created media to a client, but only in a completed media production. Your client will not have the right to create new media with the music, though. Also, as long as you maintain a subscription or purchased an individual license, you the creator can continue using the music in projects for future clients.

Buying licensed music from us means you are 100% guaranteed usage rights on YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram, and all other Internet video platforms.

However, because platforms like YouTube use automated systems to identify piracy, there’s always potential for mistakes in their attempts to identify copyrighted material. Thankfully, the potential for this is extremely rare.

If you do happen to receive a claim from YouTube, disputing the claim is very easy.

When responding to the YouTube claim simply write, "I have purchased a royalty free music license from stockmusic.net, and can provide documentation if necessary.”

99% of the time this is all that’s needed to lift the claim, but if you have any other issues please contact us at contact@stockmusic.net.

"Sync" Rights, short for "synchronization", permit a media producer to use copyrighted audio in a media production.

We like to describe it as anything besides a “muisc-only production.”

Some examples of media productions we support are:

• Films
• TV Shows
• YouTube and Internet videos
• Advertisements and commercials
• Radio ads
• Podcasts
• Apps and games
• Books on tape
• And much more

That is, any time you wish to sync music to something else, not just play the music it on its own, you need "Sync" rights. Sync rights also include mechanical rights (which once upon a time referred to pressing CDs and vinyl), namely the ability to make additional copies of a track.

At StockMusic.net, we often refer to our Sync License as our “Media Producers License” since media producers are our main customers.

Public Performance Rights allow music to be played to a public audience. The music can be synced to a media production or played directly to an audience. Some examples are in a retail store, a restaurant, an on-hold telephone system, in a gym or yoga class, or during intermission at a large event.

If you intend to play our music in something like one of the above venues, you can simply purchase our Public Performance License and be fully covered from being billed by a PRO agency like BMI or ASCAP

You don't need a Public Performance License to put a media production online, but you will if you intend to use the music in a retail setting, a restaurant, gym studio, concert hall, or on-hold system. If your work gets aired on TV (for example), don't worry – it's the network that pays for this license and handles registering with the PROs who track the number of presentations.

If you purchase our sync license (aka: Media Producers License), the music does not come with public performance rights.

Typically public performance license is obtained by the broadcasters or publishers of your media. What happens is, the broadcasters submit cue sheets to the Performance Rights Organizations who track viewership. They in turn bill the broadcaster a percentage of advertising revenue, who then pays a percentage of the revenue back to the musical artists.

It sounds complex, but most of this usually happens by the publishers and broadcasters. Rarely is the media producer responsible for Public Performance royalties.

We wrote an extensive article on Cue Sheets, Public Performance, and how it all works. Highly recommended reading for anybody who distributes media productions that use royalty free music.

Refunds are available for individual licenses if you have not downloaded it. For purchased tracks that have been downloaded, we are unable to offer any refunds.

Though we do not offer refunds for subscription plans, you still have the option of canceling your subscription at any time.

Login to your account and navigate to stockmusic.net/account/purchases.

There you can see your entire purchase history, and get a copy of your invoice.

You cannot use our music to create a new music track.

Purchasing a license only allows you to use the music to make a new piece of media. The media must be distinctly different from a pure music product. You cannot add anything new or change the track to create a new music product.

However, voiceovers, fade-in and fade-out, and background use of sound effects and dialogue are all acceptable use, when synced to a media project.

For music, we provide three formats for the music you purchase – 320k .mp3, .wav, and .aiff.   For sound effects, we only provide .wav files.

All your music can be accessed in your download page after you make a purchse.

For purchased tracks, our encoding is as follows: .mp3: 320 kbps .wav and .aiff: either 16 or 24 bit, 44100 Hz.

The demo .mp3 files are encoded with 120 kbps and are encoded with our word-mark.

Your purchased tracks and sound effects will be available forever. As long as we stay in business, you will have access to your tracks.

Each track you purchase from stockmusic.net is available to you anytime you want. So long as we stay in business, you will have access to your tracks 24/7.

Once you've bought a music license, it's yours to use forever in any project you want.

If you're a subscriber and you unsubscribe, the music you purchased under the subscription will no longer be available for download. However, those tracks will remain in your account so that if you re-subscribe, the music tracks will show up again in the MY MUSIC section of your account

To download your purchased tracks, just go to the MY MUSIC section of your account.

“Royalty Free Music” comes from music libraries that offer a one-time sync (short for "synchronization") fee that allows you usage rights for life.

Royalty Free means you will never be charged an additional fee for synch rights, no matter how many times you use the music, where you distribute it, and regardless of how many projects you use it in.

There is no expiration to a royalty free synchronization license, so it never has to be renewed. Our Media Producers License offers a very permissive royalty free music license.

If you need additional information or clarifications, just send us an email about your concerns.

We love seeing music from our library in action. Feel free to tag us if you share it anywhere on social media. If you do, please contact us and let us know about it. You may end up getting some free promotion from us.