Kevin MacLeod

Kevin MacLeod (born September 28, 1972) is an American composer and music producer.

MacLeod has composed over 2,000 pieces of royalty-free library music and made them available under a Creative Commons copyright license.

This licensing allows anyone to use his music for free, as long as he receives credit for the song, and has led to his music being used in thousands of films, millions of videos on YouTube, and in video games such as Kerbal Space Program.

MacLeod was born on September 28, 1972, in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

He went to the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay, where he studied music education.

MacLeod states that he releases his music under Creative Commons licenses to maximize the number of people who can use his music.

On his website's FAQ, he expressed disdain for the current state of copyright; he hopes to create "an alternate body of works that is able to compete with them".

MacLeod's most popular license is the Creative Commons Attribution copyright license; his music is free to use but must be credited.

A no-attribution license is also available for people who are unwilling or unable to provide credit to MacLeod; the license costs $30 for one song, $50 for two songs, and $20 per song for three or more songs.

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.

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."

MacLeod is the subject of a documentary film titled Royalty Free: The Music of Kevin MacLeod.

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.

As of 2017, his music is featured on one of the live feeds from the International Space Station, Earth From Space. One of his compositions, "Monkeys Spinning Monkeys", is among the most-played on TikTok; from January through June 2021 it was played over 31.6 billion times.

The film had a limited release in October 2020.

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.

According to the Kickstarter page, the amount was needed for transportation in order to conduct in-person interviews with the various subjects featured in the film.

The documentary has received positive reviews from critics.