Free use music?

Part of our increasing web initiatives is plenty of video from high school basketball. That means, essentially, me shooting practice. I'll do interviews and such with players and coaches, but does anyone know any sites that I can pull music (free use, of course) from to spice up video of kids practicing? As much fun as gym shoes squeaking are, it's going to get annoying. Oh wait, it already has.

 

You can get free music all over. But you are going to be in violation of individual copywrite laws if you use most of it. How does Utube get away with it? The people who post are in violation in most cases but just haven't been sued yet. You probably wouldn't be either. But there's one out. If the schools have a fight song, an alma mater, stuff like that, then get permission from the schools to use them. Most colleges give this permission free of charge.

 

You don't want to add music that you don't have the rights to. If it was just some youtube video no one is likely to come after you. If it is done by a professional entity (like a newspaper) they very well might, and the result is not cheap.

 

If you really want to go the extra mile...as well as do something innovative....seek out some indie music artists (many have myspace pages) then, when you find something you like, contact them about using their cuts...think you'll get a positive response....

 

Try this:

http://www.stockmusic.net/

 

Whoops ... that's a pay service ... check this:

http://www.shockwave-sound.com/

Most stock music sites charge ...

 

Thanks, Flash.

Yeah, I was going for free as in "I won't be fired as my company is being sued." Hell, with iMovie I can just click on a song from my iTunes collection and plug it in.

 

I'm not 100 percent sure, but you are allowed to use a certain amount of music from anybody without infringing on copyright laws ... i think it's like 20 seconds or something.

 

Yeah, that's what I was told.

For our Halloween wrap up show we used Monster Mash, but only had about 15 seconds of it play.

I thought you just couldn't use the entire song.

 

Here, check this ... although I'm not sure if it applies to public broadcast for the intent to make profit ... does your paper have a legal department you can check with?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Music_samples

Guidelines

* Copyrighted, unlicensed music samples should generally not be longer than 30 seconds or 10% of the length of the original song, whichever is shorter. For songs under 5 minutes in length, 10% is shorter.
* Samples must be of reduced quality from the original. A Vorbis quality setting of 0 (roughly 64kbps) is usually sufficient. To do this using Audacity, select Preferences under the Edit menu, and move the "Ogg quality" slider under File Formats to 0 before exporting the file in .ogg format (for Macs, select Preferences under the title menu (Audacity), and go to the File Formats tab).
* Specify a precise title for the media file (eg: "The Beatles - Michelle.ogg" instead of "beatles1.ogg")
* Add proper licensing information to the Image description page. For copyrighted music samples it should be {{Non-free audio sample}}
* All copyrighted music samples must be accompanied by a suitable fair use rationale, or it will be deleted
* Add relevant information about the sample in the description page, especially length and quality, but also copyrights, album, songwriters, producers, etc... The template {{Music sample info}} can help with this. (eg: Image:MariahCareyWeBelongTogether.ogg)
* There should be only one sample per song recording, even if multiple users produce samples. If a new sample is uploaded, the old one must be deleted. In the case of a multi-section/movement work such as a symphony or opera, the use of one relevant sample per section/movement is acceptable.

 

No. That could potentially cost you thousands of dollars.

The rules are complicated. I can explain them in terms of broadcast television, and I assume they are roughly the same for other mediums.

If you are covering an event where music is playing you can use less than 15 seconds of a song. So, if you are covering a U2 concert you can use :14 of "Sunday Bloody Sunday," then :14 of "Vertigo," but if you use :15 of any one song you've got to pay for it.

The same is true if you are doing a legit news story on U2: for example, they've announced a tour date in your city, you can show video of a past performance of the song for up to :14.

However... if you add music to something -- like adding "Monster Mash" to a story, or just playing it going into a commercial break on Halloween -- you have to report it and pay the licensing fee. There is no :15 rule -- any use, no matter how brief, is reportable.

It ain't cheap if you don't report it and get caught. A few years ago a producer at my shop remembered an old novelty song and video that fit well with something that happened that day. He found the video on YouTube and put it in the newscast. He didn't know the rules. It cost us $10,000.

 

Dunno anything about this site, but it supposedly has free music and was linked to today on lifehacker.