To credit music on YouTube, put a line in the video description with the track title, the artist and where it came from, plus the license if it's Creative Commons. For our free music, the whole credit is one line: Music: Neural Rhythms · neuralrhythms.io. Put it near the top of the description so it's visible without expanding. Below are copy-paste formats for the common cases.
Copy-paste formats
Music that asks for a simple credit (like ours):
Music: Neural Rhythms · neuralrhythms.io
With the track name, if you'd like to include it:
Music: "Mellow Mosaic" by Neural Rhythms · neuralrhythms.io
Creative Commons music. Creative Commons recommends crediting the Title, Author, Source and License:
Music: "Track Title" by Artist Name (link to the track)
Licensed under CC BY 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Several tracks in one video. Credit each one, with timestamps if you like:
Music:
00:00 "Track One" by Artist A · link
03:12 "Track Two" by Artist B · link
Licensed music. Follow whatever the license says. Some paid licenses don't require a credit at all; many free ones do.
Where the credit goes, platform by platform
- YouTube videos: the description, ideally in the first few lines.
- YouTube Shorts: the Short's description. Viewers rarely see it, but the credit still needs to be there.
- Livestreams: the stream description, plus a chat command (for example
!song) if you use a bot. - Twitch: a panel under the stream, and a chat command.
- Podcasts: the episode's show notes.
- Instagram and TikTok: the caption. If you picked the song from the app's own music library, the app credits it for you.
Mistakes that cause trouble
- Crediting instead of licensing. A credit is a condition of a license, not a replacement for one. "No copyright infringement intended" in a description does nothing.
- Crediting the wrong source. Credit the actual artist, not the compilation channel you found the track on.
- Leaving out the license for Creative Commons music.
- Deleting the description later. The credit has to stay as long as the video is up.
A credit doesn't stop Content ID
If a track is registered in Content ID, YouTube can claim your video automatically even when you've credited it perfectly. A credit is not a license, and it won't stop a claim; it's part of the proof that you had permission when the claim is reviewed. Our tracks are not registered in Content ID, so we never claim a video. If someone else's claim shows up on a video that uses our music, send us the video link. We look at who is claiming and help you answer it. If your use is covered by the free terms, we also give you a short written note that you have permission. We can't promise timing or success. The full explanation is in how to use our lofi in YouTube videos, and the different kinds of "free" music are in what each "free" label really allows.
Get a track to credit
Everything on the free music page can be downloaded and used with the one-line credit above.
Mellow Mosaic, lofi by Neural Rhythms
Written by Suman Kumar with AI help and checked before publishing. Numbers about our own music come from our Spotify for Artists and DistroKid exports; other sources are linked in the post.