“There are no strings, no structure to generate revenue”: Moby relaunches royalty-free audio library, mobygratis – and it’s totally free

Back in 2005, Moby launched mobygratis, an extensive digital library of royalty-free music. 20 years on, Moby has given mobygratis a new lease of life, relaunching the online music resource with a wealth of new instrumental tracks and audio files.

Relaunched in partnership with Little Walnut Productions, mobygratis now boasts 500 new instrumental tracks, with plans to add 250 later this year. The library is also set to continue growing over the coming years, with 500 new instrumental tracks already in the pipeline for 2026.

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While the library used to exclusively offer stereo masters, the re-vamped mobygratis now offers multitrack audio files. This should allow users more freedom to remix and experiment with each file.

Each audio track is available to download in MP3, stereo WAV and multitrack WAV formats. And searching and filtering functions have also been improved, allowing you to hunt for tracks depending on your desired mood or BPM.

To date, mobygratis cites that it has supported over 50,000 projects, helping everyone from indie film makers, to students, to choreographers. “One of my goals with mobygratis us is to create as few barriers to use as possible,” Moby explains in the announcement video. “I want you to just dive in, use the music, and see what happens.”

“Also, to be really clear, it’s free,” he insists. “There’s no bait and switch. It’s not like you sign up for seven days free, then all of a sudden you have to pay. Nope, it’s free.”

The new royalty-free tracks come from Moby’s back catalogue of creativity over the COVID-19 lockdown. “I went into my archives and ‘finished’ around 1,500 unreleased songs for mobygratis,” Moby explains. “They’re all instrumentals, and my hope is that people can find the music and do whatever they want with it. Remix it, sing on it, use it for films, choreography, social posts, whatever.”

While the music is free to use, the website lists two guidelines of use. At the very least, Moby requests people use his tracks with a sense of compassion and ethical responsibility. With that in mind, Moby politely asks to avoid using his music to promote right-wing politics/causes, or animal products.

“Hopefully, mobygratis is egalitarian chaos at its most open and unregulated,” he adds. “Free is a simple concept. mobygratis is just free. There are no strings, no structure to generate revenue, just music, made available for anyone who wants to create.”

“We’ve also included links to some of my favourite charities, so people can pay it forward if they’re moved to.”

In terms of licensing, the site offers both Restricted and mobygratis tracks. As the website explains, Restricted tracks are a bit more, well, restricting. The tracks cannot be modified or used collaboratively, and seem to be geared towards filmmakers.

On the other hand, mobygratis tracks can be fully used however anyone would like. You can modify them, or leave them as they are, and can use them for non-commercial purposes.

“Restricted tracks are only available to be licensed for independent filmmakers for their not-for-profit/charitable/non-commercial projects,” the site explains. “However all the music (‘restricted’ or ‘mobygratis’) may be licensed for use in any non-commercial films.”

For more information, head to mobygratis.com.

The post “There are no strings, no structure to generate revenue”: Moby relaunches royalty-free audio library, mobygratis – and it’s totally free appeared first on MusicTech.

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