Kevin MacLeod (musician)
Kevin MacLeod | |
---|---|
Born | Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States |
September 28, 1972
Genres | Library music, film music, video game music |
Occupation(s) | Composer, music producer |
Years active | 1996–present |
Website | incompetech |
Kevin MacLeod is an American composer and music producer living in New York City.[1][2] MacLeod is best known for his distribution of royalty-free library music through his website, Incompetech.com. MacLeod has made over 2,000 self-composed pieces of music available for download under the Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 license.[3][4][5][6] His licensing options allow anyone to use his music for free as long as he receives attribution, which has led to his music being used in millions of YouTube videos and thousands of films;[7] as of March 2015[ref], MacLeod has over 1,800 composer credits listed on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).[8] His music has been used in Hugo, several commercial video games, and videos by online content creators such as CollegeHumor, Good Mythical Morning, and many other popular YouTube channels.[9]
Contents
Music distribution
MacLeod decided to release his music under Creative Commons licenses in order to maximize the number of people who can listen to and use his music.[10] According to him, part of his reason for allowing people to use his music for free is his belief that the current copyright system is broken; he feels powerless to change the entire system on his own, but hopes to create "an alternate body of works that is able to compete with them".[10]
MacLeod's most popular license is the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY); as long as he receives credit, his music is free to use.[11] A no-attribution license is also available for people who are unwilling or unable to provide credit to MacLeod; this license costs $30 for one song, $50 for two songs, and $20 per song for three or more songs.[11]
MacLeod has also created FreePD.com, which collects new public domain sound recordings by various artists. Rather than waiting for old copyrights to expire, he hopes to provide a quality library of modern recorded works by artists who explicitly release their music into the public domain.[12] Some of MacLeod's own music is available on the website as well; he explains that these songs are "not commercially viable in the traditional sense, and just add clutter [on his primary website] which hinders people in finding the pieces that they may want."[13]
Documentary
MacLeod is the subject of a documentary film titled Royalty Free: The Music of Kevin MacLeod. It is scheduled to be released in 2016. Ryan Camarda, the film's director and producer, ran a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter with a goal of $30,000; by the end of the campaign, 524 backers had pledged a total of $30,608.[14] According to the Kickstarter page, the money was needed for transportation in order to conduct in-person interviews with the various subjects featured in the film.[14]
Notable uses of Kevin MacLeod's music
Films
Webseries
- CollegeHumor[17]
- Jacksepticeye
- Machinima Inc.[18]
- L.A. Beast
- CGP Grey
- Dross Rotzank
- Good Mythical Morning
- Adam Montoya (SeaNanners)
- Critical Role
Video games
- The Stanley Parable[19]
- Kerbal Space Program[20]
- Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments[21]
- The Bridge
- DCS: Black Shark
- SCP – Containment Breach
- World Conqueror,European War and Glory of Generals series
Other media
- Wikimedia Commons
- Ghent city promotional film[23]
- Monty Python[24][25]
- Conan[26]
- Harmontown
- Yogscast
Awards
In 2015, MacLeod was awarded the International Honorary Web Video Award at the 2015 German Web Video Awards by the European Web Video Academy for his lifetime achievement in influencing the German web video community.[27][28]
References
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- ↑ Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)
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- ↑ "Meet Kevin MacLeod: He Makes Free Music for Your Videos", YouTube Creator's Corner Blog, February 4th 2010
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External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kevin MacLeod (composer). |
- Official website
- FreePD.com – MacLeod's library of public-domain music
- Kevin MacLeod at the Internet Movie Database
- Kevin MacLeod on TwitterLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Kevin MacLeod on SoundCloud
- "Free Music – Kevin MacLeod Composes for the Internet" from Kickstarter
- Kevin MacLeod's 2013 "Ask Me Anything" Q&A on Reddit (and another AMA in 2014)
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- Use mdy dates from October 2014
- Articles with hCards
- Articles containing potentially dated statements from March 2015
- Commons category link is locally defined
- Official website not in Wikidata
- Living people
- People from Green Bay, Wisconsin
- American male composers
- American film score composers
- Musicians from Wisconsin
- Year of birth missing (living people)
- Musicians from New York City
- 20th-century composers
- 21st-century composers
- 20th-century American musicians
- 21st-century American musicians