There are dozens of music licensing platforms out there, and most guides just dump a list of them on you. The useful ones, the ones worth your time, tell you how to choose before they tell you what exists. That’s what this guide does. Five minutes here will save you hours of trial, error, and legal headaches down the road.
This Guide Was Built From 100+ Festival Trailers
I’ve edited over 100 trailers for film festivals, including Berlinale and the American Film Market (AFM). Many of those films went on to theatrical distribution. Across all of them, music rights were consistently the most common source of delays, not the edit, not the color: The music. When you don’t handle licensing properly from the start, you risk pulling a cleared track at the last minute, renegotiating rights under deadline pressure, or worse, having your trailer blocked or your film flagged during a festival submission. This guide exists so that doesn’t happen to you.
How Music Licensing Works?
A music license is a set of rules that defines the exact conditions under which a track can be used. Use a track outside of those conditions, wrong medium, wrong territory, wrong type of project, and you’re legally exposed. Every platform writes its own license terms, so you cannot assume what’s allowed on one platform applies to another. Always read the license for the specific platform and tier you’re subscribing to.
What License Types Exist?
Creator Licenses
Cover personal projects only. These are designed for podcasters, YouTubers, and social media creators. If you’re making something for yourself, this tier works. If you’re delivering work to a client, it doesn’t.
Pro Licenses
It covers client work. This is the tier built for freelancers and independent editors who are creating projects on behalf of a paying client. For festival film trailers, this is the tier you need.
Business / Enterprise Licenses
This also cover client work, but are structured for larger teams. The main practical difference is that these tiers typically include 24/7 priority support from the platform directly. If you’re a solo editor or small operation, this tier offers more than you need.
The 3 Industry-Standard Platforms for Festival Film Trailers
There are many music licensing platforms. Most of them work. But these three have standardized their licensing so thoroughly that once you’re subscribed, the legal side is essentially handled — you don’t need to think about it anymore:
1. Artlist
3. Premium Beat
All three operate the same core model: vast catalogs of pre-cleared music available through monthly or annual subscriptions. Subscribe, find your track, use it.
Which One Is Right for You?
Choose Artlist if budget flexibility matters to you.
With more than 7 subscription tiers, it’s the most likely of the three to have a plan that fits your exact needs without paying for features you don’t use. It also strikes a strong balance between filtering capability and catalog quality.
Choose Epidemic Sound if your trailer needs a very specific mood or tone and you need to find it fast.
Its search engine gives you automated genre and instrument recommendations based on your typed context, describe what you’re looking for and it narrows down the catalog intelligently. Strong for emotionally precise work.
Choose Premium Beat if your trailer requires extremely accurate tonal matching.
It offers the most granular instrument filtering of the three, a dense, detailed list of combinations that lets you dial in texture with surgical precision. Best for projects where the wrong instrument in the mix would genuinely change the feel of the cut.
The License Decision for Festival Distribution
For a trailer that will be distributed publicly across film festivals, select the Pro License on whichever platform you choose. It covers commercial projects distributed to a public audience, which is exactly what a festival trailer is. Creator tiers do not cover this use case.
Personally, I use Artlist for my clients’ trailers. It’s the sweet spot between solid filtering, broad catalog, and a license price that doesn’t eat into a project budget unnecessarily.
What’s Next: Building the Trailer Itself
Now that you know where to source your music legally, the next step is understanding how to actually structure a trailer that works when it reaches a distributor or festival programmer.
Read: How to Create a Movie Trailer for a Festival That Secures Distribution
Inside, we break down what distributors evaluate before they even request a screener and how to position your trailer so it opens doors, not closes them.
MAX-Q Studio 