You run a Star Wars podcast. You want theme music that sounds like Star Wars. You are about to make an expensive mistake. Here is the short version of what you can and can’t use, and where to get music that won’t get your episode pulled.

The John Williams score is off the table

The Main Title, the Imperial March, the Cantina Song — all of it is owned, all of it is actively enforced, and all of it is matched automatically by every major platform’s content ID system. “It’s only ten seconds” is not a licensing strategy. “It’s fan use” is not either.

If you genuinely need the score, you need a sync license, and the answer will involve a number with commas in it.

What you actually want is fan-made original music

Original songs written about Star Wars are a different legal object entirely. The composition and the recording belong to the band that made them, so the band is free to let you use them. And a surprising number of us will, for nothing, because having our songs in your ears is the whole reason we made them.

The catch is that permission has to come from the artist. A song being on Bandcamp is not permission. Ask, or find a band that has already answered the question publicly.

Where to look

The scene is small but it exists. Sarlacc if your show wants grindcore stings measured in seconds. Hoth if you want atmospheric metal played completely straight. Aerosith if you want something performed in character. Pallet-Swap Ninja if you want the Beatles rewritten as Star Wars. We keep a running guide to all of them.

The full guide to bands writing Star Wars music →

Ours is free. Here’s the deal.

Five albums, free to use in podcasts, videos, streams, fan films and convention panels. No fee, no contract, no email required first. Credit the song and the band and link back if your format has show notes.

Intro music, outro music, bed under a segment, a whole song in an episode — all fine. We’ll send you clean audio, including instrumental versions if you want to talk over them.

The terms, in full, in about thirty seconds of reading →

One practical note

Don’t rip audio from streaming services. It sounds bad and it confuses platform matching systems in ways that create problems you don’t need. Download proper files from Bandcamp or ask the band directly. Most of us will just send them.