Can I use music provided in iMovie for a commercial for my business?

iMovie legal from March 2019

http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/iMovie.pdf

On page 2 of the English version:

"The Apple Software contains sample content including but not limited to graphics, audio clips, video clips and/or templates (“Sample Content”). This Sample Content is proprietary to Apple and/or its licensors, and is protected by applicable intellectual property and other laws, including but not limited to copyright. Except as otherwise provided, all Sample Content included in the Apple Software may be used on a royalty-free basis in your own video projects but may not be distributed on a standalone basis."

The people posting here are volunteer users like yourself and we cannot advise on legal matters other than directing you to Apple's legal documents for you to interpret.

Limnos and sgphoto83,

The problem is that the OP wants to use iMovie music on social media for commercial purposes. Aside from copyright issues, that raises the question of possible violation of the non-commercial use prohibition and restriction to personal use provisions of the iMovie license.

The question arises from the language of Paragraph 2G of the iMovie license agreement that provides in part:

"... all Media Content included in the Apple Software may be used on a royalty-free basis in your own video projects but may not be distributed on a standalone basis (and audio Media Content may only be used for your own personal, non-commercial use)." (Emphasis added)

All of the above is subject to legal interpretation. So, without a legal opinion from an attorney one uses the audio content at one's own risk. Usually the social media website would just flag it if there is a copyright claim, as happened in this case, and the user could challenge the claim (most websites have a mechanism for doing this) or just change out the audio content for something not protected. I have no idea of how closely Apple monitors the use of its audio content to insure license compliance.

-- Rich

Copyright laws are tricky and may be different in each country. It is particularly messy in in Germany, where most artists are transferred the management of the copyright to the GEMA. But the copyright to a song will always belong to the artist. The artist can grant the use of the song under certain conditions. Look at the licence posted by Limnos and check the items that are not mentioned.

The GarageBand licence is giving us explicit rights for a commercial use of the audio content, and a similar statement is missing from the iMovie licence. So I would be careful. It would be safer to create the soundtrack for your iMovie Project in GarageBand - it has the nicer licence that grants you the use to create a song arrangement for commercial use and distribution: Using royalty-free loops in GarageBand with commercial work - Apple Support

Learn about the usage of royalty-free loops in GarageBand on commercial songs, multimedia presentations, videos, and animations.

The GarageBand software license agreement says:

"GarageBand Software. You may use the Apple and third party audio loop content (Audio Content), contained in or otherwise included with the Apple Software, on a royalty-free basis, to create your own original music compositions or audio projects. You may broadcast and/or distribute your own music compositions or audio projects that were created using the Audio Content, however, individual audio loops may not be commercially or otherwise distributed on a standalone basis, nor may they be repackaged in whole or in part as audio samples, sound effects or music beds."

So don't worry, you can make commercial music with GarageBand, you just can't distribute the loops as loops.

Published Date: January 18, 2017

All iMovie content from the older "iLIfe Sound Effects" and "iMovie Sound Effects" are appearing in my GrarageBand Loop Browser and can be used to create a sound track for a video that has been added to the Movie Track in garageBAnd.

You may also find these topics of interest:

2012 topic: YouTube complaining about copyright infringement with sound included with Final Cut Pro - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4573536 and related question, Sept. 2015: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7215869 and https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7424607?answerId=29642404022#29642404022

Good observation Rich. That non-commercial clause would seem to negate using iMovie audio for this.

You should see if you read it the same way I do but in particular in the context of the last sentence I quoted I think it would be okay for you to use it in an iMovie project, you just couldn't take all the sound clips in the iMovie Library and put them on a CD and distribute that CD as "Soundclips by SGPhoto83". So kind of like you could use brand X paint to make a painting and sell that painting with your name, and only your name, on it, but you couldn't take splits of brand X paints and put them into little tubes in a box and sell that box as "Brand Y" paints.

I so read it, but I have absolutely zero legal training, I just have many hours behind me figuring out what Apple's documents say and don't say. ;-)

The responses by Limnos are correct.

For more information, or if you want to request permission from Apple to use any of its content click on this link:

https://www.apple.com/legal/contact/

-- Rich

Yeah, that would seem to be the case. I wish Apple would issue some bulletins to clear up some of the legal issues re use of iMovie content. I would like to see more copyright free content as well.

— Rich

Ummm, having helped on this site for over 15 years now, Apple's strengths do not lie in utilizing clarity in its documentation. I recently plugged an iPhone we had been using for years into iTunes to create a backup and it asked, "Do you want to set this up as a new device?" No way! I didn't want it erased like a new device. It turned out that it didn't mean it was going to erase the device, it was going to make a new device backup. Anyway, I say bring on the legalese because although people tend to find it confusing it is designed to be unambiguous. I spent many years writing scientific documentation and I am constantly sending feedback on many of the support document I read to help people here.