AV News 189 - August 2012
Creative Commons Music
John Smith APAGB CPAGB
I was making my annual visit to SLIC - the South Lancashire Imaging Club's
audio visual group's discussion afternoon. At their meeting they just show
sequences for comment and discussion. It was during one of these discussions
that the subject of copyright and copyright free music came up.
I was informed that there was a great deal of quality music suitable for AV
available on the internet which could be used free of charge for non commercial
purposes under 'Creative Commons' licences. On my return home I looked
into this and discovered that this was in fact true.
Many musicians choose to release their songs under Creative Commons
licenses, which give you the legal right to use their music in your sequences.
The various licenses help the creators of the music to retain their copyright
while allowing others to copy, distribute, and make some uses of their work, at
least non-commercially.
Where can I find CC-licensed music?
Several sites offer music published under Creative Commons’ flexible
copyright licenses. Here are some:
CcMixter
Jamendo
Free Music Archive
Magnatune
Simuze
CASH Music
BeatPick
SectionZ
Podsafe Audio
Opsound
AudioFarm
Internet Archive’s Netlabels Collection
Can I use any song with a CC license on it?
Almost - you need to make sure that what you want to do with the music is
OK under the terms of the particular Creative Commons license it’s under.
CC-licensed music isn’t free for all uses, only some so make sure to check out
the terms (you can find these by clicking on each song’s license icon).
A description of the individual licences are to be found on the next page.
Most importantly, you need to make sure that you do not use music licensed
under a No Derivative Works X