If you’ve done your fair share of digging online for samples you’ve probably seen the term “Royalty Free Samples”. But what exactly does “Royalty Free” actually mean?
In this post I’ll break down exactly what Royalty Free Samples are. How to check if the samples you’re using are actually royalty free. And how to avoid the hidden strings attached to some royalty free terms.
What Are Royalty Free Samples?
The term Royalty Free refers to a type of license. This license can be issued towards any copyright material or Intellectual Rights. However, the original creator still holds full ownership. Royalty free is not copyright free.
It’s simply a license that grants you the rights to use the material without having to pay additional charges or royalties.
Royalty Free Samples are just samples that come with a Royalty Free license. So, in theory if you hold a royalty free license towards a sample you have the right to use the sample in your commercial project. And you get to keep all your royalty profits from the project without having to pay additional charges.
The most common question we get is. “If I create a hit record with one of your samples will it remain royalty free?”. For the samples we sell on our website the answer is yes. Our Royalty Free Samples terms are very black and white. You can use them in a commercial project and keep your earnings. However, you can not re-sell or re-package our samples. The samples can’t be used for any competitive projects. You can’t trade or send anyone the sample(s) that don’t have a purchased license for it.
Why Our Samples Are Royalty Free
A lot of people ask us why we sell our samples with this license. Just like our terms, the answer is black and white. Our goal here is to help producers grow. We don’t want producers to hit a big record with our samples then have half there profits taken from them. We want to see producers hit big records with our samples. And we want to see them reap in the benefits as they grow. Kits Kreme strives to act as a brand that actually looks out for producers. That’s why we do what we do.
However, not every sample company is like this. This leads us to our next topic.
Hidden Terms
The one thing we highly recommend is to read every sample companies license terms before you even look at their samples. Just because a site says the samples are “Royalty Free” dose not mean it’s as black and white as you may think.
License’s such as a royalty free license can have additional terms & restrictions. One thing we come across a lot is producers thinking they’re getting a black and white royalty free license then finding out they can’t post their project on youtube because of a copyright strike.
The additional terms can be anything from; you can only profit on certain platforms, the license only lasts for a certain amount of time, the license only applies to certain countries, etc. The point is, there are many additional terms that can be attached to a royalty free license. That’s why it’s always smart to read the fine print.
