Kevin MacLeod

The wide availability and freeness of his work have made it featured in thousands of films and millions of videos on YouTube. A documentary charting his career, Royalty Free: The Music of Kevin MacLeod, was released in 2020.

• Name — Kevin MacLeod • Born — 1972 • Birthplace — Green Bay, Wisconsin, US • Genre — * Library music • film music • video game music • Occupation — * Composer • music producer • Website — incompetech.com

Kevin MacLeod was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in 1972. He began piano lessons at a young age: "as a 4-year old or whatever it was." He attended university where he initially studied electrical engineering; however, amid a distaste for chemistry requirements, he switched to music education after his first month. He never graduated. He grew up with two brothers, Michael Marin and David Marin. MacLeod had a brief stint as a computer programmer during the dot-com bubble. He had colleagues in the multimedia world struggling to find music, so he began composing and sharing his works online, particularly on YouTube. During this time, he created his website, Incompetech, which initially generated ad revenue from a PDF generator of graph paper.

MacLeod is a composer and music producer, who often posts royalty-free music on his website Incompetech. His music is free to use but requires formal credit, per the Creative Commons Attribution copyright license. Instead of crediting him, parties can pay a fee for a no-attribution license, which starts at $30 for one song, $50 for two songs, and $20 per song for three or more songs. MacLeod receives some advertising revenue from music streaming services but "otherwise relies on donations via Patreon." On his website's FAQ, he expressed disdain for the current state of copyright; he hopes to create "an alternate body of works that is able to compete with them." In September 2011, MacLeod became able to assign ISRC codes for his music. The wide availability of his music has led to it being used in thousands of films and millions of videos on YouTube and other social media sites. As of 2017, his music is featured on one of the live feeds from the International Space Station, Earth From Space. The media that featured his music varies much, from Martin Scorsese's 2011 film Hugo to pornographic films. One of his songs, "Monkeys Spinning Monkeys", released on February 3, 2014, is among the most played on TikTok; from January through June 2021, it was played over 31.6 billion times. When Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig presented an award at the 2024 Golden Globes, their use of MacLeod's 2010 song "Fluffing a Duck" was widely noted and gave him considerable attention.

Kevin MacLeod is recorded with the occupation film score composer. Recorded with the occupation record producer. Recorded with the occupation audio engineer. Classed in the genre video game music. Recorded as composer, record producer and audio engineer.

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