Legal free downloads come from artists and labels who choose to give music away: free and name-your-price releases on Bandcamp, SoundCloud tracks with downloads switched on, label promos, and Creative Commons catalogues such as Free Music Archive. Ripping tracks from YouTube or Spotify breaks their terms, and a free download still needs a performance licence, usually the venue's, when you play it at a public gig.
Where to download free DJ music
Each source sets its own terms for what you can do with a download, linked in each section.
Bandcamp: free and name-your-price releases
Artists and labels set their own prices on Bandcamp, and some give releases away, either as free items or as name-your-price items with no minimum, where you can enter zero, per Bandcamp's help pages. Artists can tag them, so the free download tag is a place to start, but check the price on each release. Downloads are DRM-free and come in MP3 V0, MP3 320, FLAC, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, ALAC, WAV and AIFF, so you can take lossless files. Some free releases ask for an email address first. Each artist account gets 200 free downloads a month, so a free release can stop being free until the count resets. Bandcamp says it holds only limited rights to distribute the music, and sends you to the artist or label for any other use.
SoundCloud: tracks with downloads switched on
The uploader decides whether a track can be downloaded. When they allow it, you get a copy of the file they uploaded, from the download button beneath the waveform on the web, once you're signed in, per SoundCloud's help page. SoundCloud says a missing button means the uploader didn't intend the track to be downloadable. You can't download on a phone, and you can't download a playlist in one go. Many producers link a free download from the track description instead, often through a download gate such as Hypeddit, which hands over the file in return for a like, repost or follow.
Free Music Archive and Creative Commons catalogues
Free Music Archive offers original music by independent artists under open licences, mostly Creative Commons, and you can listen without an account. It is plain that free doesn't mean free of conditions: each track page shows its licence, and a licence filter lets you search for the ones that suit you. The Creative Commons licences decide what you can do with a track:
- CC BY allows any use, including commercial use, as long as you credit the artist.
- CC BY-SA allows the same, but anything you adapt from the track must carry the same licence.
- CC BY-ND allows copying and sharing in unadapted form only. Free Music Archive says not to blend, remix or modify an ND track without the artist's permission, so ask before you mix one into a set.
- CC BY-NC, BY-NC-SA and BY-NC-ND allow noncommercial use only. Creative Commons defines that as use not primarily intended for commercial advantage or monetary compensation, and doesn't say whether a particular use counts. If you are paid for the gig, ask the artist first or pick a track that allows commercial use, as Free Music Archive suggests when in doubt.
- CC0 has no conditions at all.
Credit an artist the way Free Music Archive sets out: title, artist, source and licence, written in the description of a mix you post online. Jamendo Music is a second Creative Commons catalogue. Its terms allow downloads for private and personal use, and its paid Jamendo Licensing licences are built around putting one track in one video or audio project, so it suits background music more than DJ sets.
Label promos
Labels send new music to chosen DJs as promos, often before release, and the label decides who is on the list. Inflyte, a promo service that labels and agencies pay for, describes labels importing their contact lists and targeting DJs by tag, delivering by email, into rekordbox or to Dropbox, and scanning radio, playlists and DJ sets for where the track gets played. Promo files are monitored for piracy, so keep them to yourself.
Remix contests
A remix contest gives you a track's official stems to make your own version. Contests on SKIO Music are free to enter, but the track's owner keeps the rights: SKIO's terms treat a contest remix as the owner's work and license it back to you only for promoting yourself on SoundCloud, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and SKIO. Read each contest's terms before you play or share your remix.
Streaming inside DJ software isn't free
The streaming services built into DJ software need a paid plan to play there:
- Spotify works in rekordbox, Serato DJ and djay, and since September 2026 in VirtualDJ, Cross DJ and edjing Mix, but only with Spotify Premium. Spotify's DJ support page says the service is for personal, non-commercial use and that playing mixes in clubs, venues, events or livestreams isn't permitted.
- SoundCloud needs SoundCloud Go+ to stream in rekordbox and SoundCloud DJ to store tracks offline, per SoundCloud's rekordbox page. New users may get a 30-day free trial of Go+. Streams run at up to 256 kbps AAC, or higher if the original upload allows, and you can't record a set that uses streamed SoundCloud tracks.
- Beatport Streaming's entry plan doesn't work in DJ software at all; see Beatport Streaming and the DJ pools guide.
Ripping from YouTube or Spotify breaks their terms
Converter sites and stream recorders aren't a free source. YouTube's terms of service say you may not download or reproduce any content except where YouTube offers it, where YouTube and the rights holders give written permission, or where the law allows. Spotify's user guidelines ban copying, "ripping" and recording its content. If a track you want is only on a streaming service, buy it from a download store or get it from a pool.
A free download still needs a performance licence
A free download or a Creative Commons licence is permission from the artist. It doesn't replace the licence to play music in public, which the venue or event organiser usually holds from the collecting society: PPL PRS in the UK, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC or GMR in the US, GEMA in Germany, SACEM in France and SGAE in Spain. In the UK and Germany, copying music onto a laptop or USB stick for gigs needs its own licence, and if you organise the event yourself, the venue licence becomes your job. Free Music Archive also tells users to check the rules on collecting societies where they play.
When free isn't enough
Chart music, and the clean, intro and acapella edits that weddings and bars need, come from record pools by subscription. The guide to the best DJ pools compares them by the music you play.
How these sources are chosen
Each source here links the service's own help pages, terms or site, and every detail on this page comes from one of those, read on 12 October 2026. We haven't downloaded from every service for this guide. Terms and plans change, so check the service's own page before you rely on it for a gig. The methodology explains the whole process.
