Whenever a project is copyrighted, whoever owns the copyrights to the project gets paid for their work when other artists or writers use their work. The payments are called royalties. Sometimes there are ways copyrighted music can get used as royalty free music. To explain it best, royalty free music is a type of music license that a person can buy the license, and they can use the music for however long they want. They will not have to pay the original owner anything. Platforms such as YouTube and Instagram use this method. It can help the original owner get their music promoted in other ways, but once the license is purchased, they lose all the rights to the music. The fees determined under the copyright laws and the terms of the agreement by the original owner. Some people confuse the royalty free part as everything is free—this not the case.

A custom soundtrack is an original song put together for a project. There are a few examples like the songs in video games. They have only a portion of the song in the video games by the original artist. A custom soundtrack gives a listener an option to hear the entire song. Another example is theme songs for sitcoms or movies. The song at the beginning of a show is not the original, and sometimes the words are different, or there are lyrics added or removed. There is a soundtrack available usually on the LP where the listener can hear the original. When an artist plays the song live, it is their original and will not play the theme song to whatever show bought the rights. Sometimes the songs are also downloaded on platforms such as Spotify, Pandora, or others. These songs can even get heard through those means.