We have some students who will create some videos, and we need sources of music they can use. What options are available?
- Greg
–
Greg Brenneman
IT Manager
Wooster Christian School
This blog lists several websites: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2017/02/7-places-to-find-free-music-sound.html
Look at tracks and services that utilize the Creative Commons (CC) licenses, especially type “0”, I think. You’ll have to look up the list of types and determine which ones you want to/are allowed to use for your specific production. The CC license is also applied to many sound effects library tracks, which is nice.
Freesound.org has many sounds and music files with CC licenses.
Many thanks for the suggestions, unfortunately many of the sites the music is not free, just free of royalty. Since we are using this for 20 or 30 middle school students, cost is a big issue. We would in fact prefer use of songs from Christian artists for the videos.
On a related note, I believe it time for churches to challenge Christian musicians on the inability of churches to legally use music from the artists for videos and other uses, thereby forcing churches into royalty free generic sounding music. Time for artists to work out a simple process to purchase individual songs, at a modest cost, for use in church video production. If such a process exists, I am not aware of it. Neither CCLI nor CVLI cover such uses of music. Artists are increasingly protecting the right not to make money!
- Greg
Artists aren’t making much money in the first place, and you just said that you were seeking free music. Not sure how that is a win/win. I don’t think artists are forcing anyone to do anything, especially not use free generic music. Sorry, that just didn’t sit well with me.
Musicbed.com and Marmoset have fantastic affordable music available for licensing.
I should clarify talking about 2 separate issues.
- I am looking for some music for our Christian school students to use for projects, this would be one time use for posting online, so we need something generic and free and legal.
- If a church does find a song they really like by a particular artist, and wish to use it for a video, there is no good mechanism to pay the artist and get permission to use the song, therefore churches turn to royalty free, hence my statement about protecting the right not to make money.
Sorry the statement did not sit well, but the fact is most of us have to keep doing our job to get paid, whereas artists create music, copyright it, and are entitled to some form of royalty for decades (I believe the current is at least 70 years). Maybe artists do not make that much, but it sure is a better deal than most of us have.
- Greg
Try the open source/creative commons music sites:
http://www.webdistortion.com/2009/02/21/11-awesome-open-source-music-sites-for-digital-creatives/
http://freemusicarchive.org/curator/Video/
http://ccmixter.org/
Most of the attribution licenses will let you use audio tracks when it isn’t used for profit.
Does your church have licenses with CCLI? If so, that gives you options you are already paying for.
Our school has CCLI, but it does not cover the use of music with videos (which triggers a synchronization license). CCLI only covers putting songs on screen, and CVLI only covers playing videos, but neither cover the use we need, where videos are being created and put to music.
- Greg