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Free and Legal Music

Acid Express
Forget worrying about copyright – make the music yourself. This program allows you to sort of like painting with sound. Download “loops” from some of the sites mentioned here to increase your library of sounds.  The free version limits the number of tracks and formats that you save.

CCMixter
“Browse this site to hear some of the great remixes people have built from sampling music on this site, all licensed for use under Creative Commons license.”

Jamendo
“On Jamendo artists allow anyone to download and share their music. It’s free, legal and unlimited.”

Jimmy G Music
Another composer making his music free to the masses.  You do need to register first.

Jonathon Roberts
Music may be used in any capacity through a creative commons license, as long as you credit “Jonathon Roberts (jmtr.com)”.

Kevin McLeod
He has made his music freely available to download.  Also known as incompetech.

MP34U
“There are so many great songs in the public domain arena. We are ripping and specially mastering MP3 files as fast as we can. We hope you enjoy our selections.”

Open Music Archive
“Open Music Archive is a collaborative project, initiated by artists Eileen Simpson & Ben White, to source, digitise and distribute out-of-copyright sound recordings. The archive is open for anyone to use and contribute to.”

Purple Planet Music
Royalty free.  No registration.  Just browse and download.  Be sure to give them credit.

Podsafe Audio
Wide range of music to be found here.

Podsafe Music Network
We used to use this all the time.  There is a lot of music available here but you have to have your own podcast before signing up.  Be prepared to invest a lot of time to finding music as the interface is pretty unwieldy. Some inappropriate stuff here as well…

Wikimedia
Another collection using the .ogg format.  Not sure if it’s entirely useful for our purposes.  Let us know.

Loops
(snippets of music which are useful for making your own music with software like Acid Xpress)

Free Loops
“With over 6000 sounds and samples it’s easy to get overwhelmed…”

iBeat
“Contemporary music production pack consisting of 16bit wave files available as shots, loops and instrumentals. All available under Creative Commons.”

Sample Net
SampleNet is the world’s first free sample search engine. There are thousands of CD-quality samples here for you to search and download. All of SampleNet’s samples are copyright free.

SpliceMusic
“Splice gives anyone, anywhere the ability to collaborate on music right through a web browser. You can upload or record sounds, make songs, listen to other user’s songs, make remixes, make friends and a whole lot more.”

Click here for sound effects.

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A Question from Jamie Barteaux

Hi Nathan and Jane,

I am curious about www.freeplaymusic.com as another source for music clips. I know you mentioned this site at an earlier showcase of your work. Is this still another good source to use or is there some copyright issues for using this source with our student podcasts?

Thanks,

Jamie at WEJ

Answer to Our Prayers? – ‘Fraid Not

Freeplay Music seemed to be the answer to our prayers when we first started, but the last time I looked at the site, it was clear about not giving a free license to use their music on a podcast, while it was OK to use it for non-broadcast purpose. For example, I’ve used music from the site for my students to play recorders/drums to play along to. We’ve used the music as a part of the concerts we put on in the gym. That’s legal because we’re not broadcasting.

No Freeplay Music For You!

And, sadly, they continue to be very clear about not giving free permission to use their music in a podcast:

If you are using Freeplay Music for:

(1) Personal Non-Commercial Use (Non-revenue generating). This excludes broadcast use of any kind, including, without limitation, web, blog, and podcast use; or

(2) Educational, Non-Commercial use (this is limited to student use on school grounds for in classroom projects- non broadcast)

Then Freeplay Music’s compositions and recordings may be used without a fee.

What to do?

Well, I guess you could pay for their music, but that’s not what we’re all about here at Portable PD.

Click here for our own list of sites that offer free and legal music.

Suggestions?

Anyone out there found some new sources for copyright free music? Leave us a comment!

This post was written by Nathan Toft