I recently noticed that there seems to be a growing trend for professional artists to have “relaxing” music played while visitors view their website.  I think this resurgence of having music on your website, comes from people believing that everyone has a boardband connection, which of course is not true. This is similar to what happened with personal web sites 10 - 15 years ago when it was a novelty to show your friends that you could put your favorite song on your website for everyone to enjoy - assuming everyone had the same taste in music and would look at how cool your flaming logo is while they wait for your music to download.

While I understand what you are trying to accomplish by “setting the mood” for viewing your imagery, let me give you some food for thought on how to use it and other gotchas you need to consider before implementing this on your own website.

First, if you are going to have music anywhere on your website, the last thing you want to do is to have it automatically play on the opening page of their website. It will delay the loading of the page, which if they are not on a fast connection, could cause them to leave your website before they ever get to see what you are all about.

If you are going to play music on your website, give them the option to stop the music without taking away from the functionality.  For example if you have an online slideshow that has music to it, they should be able to view this slideshow without music. The last thing you want to do is to scare away a potential client because they don’t share your same taste in music or are viewing your site on a dial-up connection - again, catering to your visitors.

The other thing people forget is the legal aspect of playing music on their website. Just because I believe that a particular song from Aerosmith that I have a legal personal MP3 music file on my IPOD would create the correct mood for a photo gallery of mine does not necessarily mean I can use that same file and use it on my website. While I am not a legal expert on copyright law so you should check with your attorney regarding your situation before proceeding with putting music on your website, my understanding is you would be using that music file in a commercial application, which was not granted when you purchased it - thus you would need to get those expressed rights to avoid an unpleasent conversation with RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) should they become aware of your unlicensed usage.

So how do you stay legal, I saw a recent write-up from the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) who recommend either aquire the proper usage rights by aquiring a synchronization and master use licenses which will allow you to legally used the copyrighted music in this manner. To obtain the synchronization license, required to record music as accompaniment to a slideshow or other presentation - you must contact the music publishing company that owns the rights to the composition which is usually found on the disc or CD insert.  To obtain the master use license - permitting you to make recordings of an existing CD or other music format - you’ll need to contact the owner of the actual recording, which is almost always the record label. This information is also usually on the disc or CD insert and the fees for master use are negociated individually.

Of course, if you want to avoid all of that, you can use royalty free music which provides you with a non-exclusing license to copy and synchronize your work. Cost and quality of the music varies so be sure to investigate and read the license agreement before you purchase. There are a large number of music companies that offer this and can be found by searching “royalty free music” in Google.