'Creative Commons' music sites – Free and legal music for you station.

Support

Level 1 Support
Staff member
You may or may not be aware of the fact that there are several “Creative Commons” music sites where you can download free and legal music for your radio stations.

The “Creative Commons” license which are provided by the non-profit organization “Creative Commons” grants a form of copyright permissions to any creators own creative work. The license then allows the works creators to retain this copyright whilst at the same time allowing others to copy, distribute and make some uses of their work under their own conditions. This could be as for “non-commercial” uses for example. There are several different types of “Creative Commons” licenses in place and a more detailed explanation of how they work can be found here.

Below are some of the various “Creative Commons” music sites that are available.

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Free Music Archive
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Jamendo
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NoiseTrade
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Opsound
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ccMixter
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Creative Dubs

iPluggers also offer a free plugging service for radio stations in which you can obtain new and free music for airplay:

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iPluggers

Not only can these websites provide you with new, unheard and original content for your stations, but this also provides a good alternative for broadcasters who want to broadcast without having to acquire a broadcasters license.

We recently set up two radio stations created purely with content downloaded at the Free Music Archive. If you would like to have a listen and get an idea of the quality of some of the music that is available at just their website alone, you can tune into both of the stations here and hear for yourselves:

'Polymer Radio' (Electronic / Dance).
'Undertow Radio' (Rock / Indie).

Before creating the stations, we got in contact with the Free Music Archive to enquire about the possibility of using content from their website in such a manner. They offered a very nice and helpful reply which advised us that as we formulated our playlist, they recommend that we used their search page to specify that we were looking for music for “commercial use” and music that can be used in a podcast, meaning basically that it could be used for online streaming without having to pay any royalties.

On the search page at the Free Music Archive, in the left columns you have the option to search for tracks that “Allows for commercial use”. At the time of writing this guide there is almost around 4000 such tracks that are available to choose from. To then see what license is then being used for any specific song, you can then just click on the track title. This will then take you to the song page for the track on which the right hand column then displays what license the artist has selected for their work.

We received some other useful advice from the Free Music Archive on the different type of creative commons licensing and some things to be aware of when searching for tracks to use.

FMA artists give their permission through licenses. A license is an agreement that prescribes the terms under which a copyrighted work may be used. Many of the licenses that cover works on the Free Music Archive are so-called “Creative Commons” (or “CC”) licenses. The majority of our artists use CC licenses to explain the kind of permission they want to give.

To see what license is being used for a specific song, click on the track title. Then, on the song page, look at the right hand column. There you should see what license the artist has selected for their work.

Currently, there are six CC licenses, which allow varying degrees of use and impose varying requirements on users. To achieve this diversity of options while keeping things relatively simple, CC mixes and matches four key license terms: Attribution, NonCommercial (“NC”), NoDerivatives (“ND”), and ShareAlike (“SA”).

A brief rundown of the terms: NC allows you to use the licensed work non-commercially (which means you need additional permission from the rightsholder before using the work for commercial purposes); ND means you cannot build upon, remix the work, or use it in a video; SA allows you to remix a work so long as you share it under the same CC license that covers the original work; and Attribution, which is currently in every CC license, requires you to give credit to the rightsholder when you use the work.

For a more detailed explanation of CC’s license terms and a summary of each individual license, visit Creative Commons.

Here's a wiki many of our users find helpful, identifying a few things licensees should consider before using Creative Commons works:
Frequently Asked Questions - CC Wiki

Where as we have mostly outlined here how to find usable tracks from the Free Music Archive, with some of the other websites available you may need to do a some research into what you can actually use from these sites. In some instances, as advised to us by two other Creative Commons websites Opsound and NoiseTrade. You may need to actually contact the composer of a track so that different arrangements can be made based upon the artist's direct permissions. Such arrangements might possibly free a station from the need to attribute the artists as their Attribution / ShareAlike license requires. This would would however involve a station having to contact each artist individually for permission and therefore being granted a waiver.

The Australian Creative Commons team have produced a very useful guide on attributing works in different formats. In this guide a section on podcasting can be found, so you may wish to use this information and apply it to attributing any artists work that you may use in your own live / pre recorded shows and playlists. The Creative Commons website also offers information on the “Best Practices for Marking Content with CC Licenses” here.

*Please note that we are not legal experts and this guide is merely an overview of using “Creative Commons” music and the licensing involved. We strongly suggest doing your own research into the topic with the information and links provided and also always be fully aware of the licensing requirements of any content that you may wish to use for your own station. If you are ever unsure of using any content found on some the websites we have mentioned here or others, it is always worth contacting them directly for advise, as they will be in a better position than us to advise you on the legality’s and licensing permissions of their own websites content.
 

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Support

Level 1 Support
Staff member
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GET MUSIC FOR AIRPLAY NOW!

iPluggers has a large database of new high-quality releases available for airplay. Their platform uses mail updates ('iPlugging') to keep music directors updated on the newest releases in their genre.

You can create your own account and adjust the iPlugging to suit your needs. After login you can listen to each track on the individual artist profiles before you decide to download it. Artist information (video's, biography, discography etc.) can also be found here.

Stations can also browse the archives for previously plugged releases. The niche tagging of tracks (approx. 200 subgenres) makes finding the perfect track for your playlist a breeze!

Tracks are provided as mp3 (320 kbps) with id3-tags and an optional .zip label copy.

This service is completely free of charge. All that you have to do, is sign up.

Music directors and station owners can create an account via iPluggers: worldwide digital radio promotion | Radio sign up to get access to their complete database.

FEATURES

- iPluggers is completely free of charge for radio stations.
- They provide you with the newest releases in various genres.
- They only provide tracks of top artists! Artists and labels are carefully selected using a strict A&R procedure.
- You don't receive all music, just the genres you're interested in.
- iPluggers will never sent .mp3 files to your inbox. You only receive light-weight mail updates with links to online press kits where you can listen to- and download the tracks you want to airplay.
- No special software needed: listen to tracks using your browser and download the newest releases.
- Download songs in broadcast quality.
- Artist- and song information are provided for each track (as id3-tags and optional .zip label copy)
- Every artist and label has their own profile page (digital press kit) where you can find additional information (such as biography, discography, pictures, videos, social media links, iTunes artist link)
- Browse their archives of releases by main genre and 200 subgenres.
- You can further personalize your plugging settings and change the plugging genre range and update frequency to suit your needs.

THE BOTTOM LINE

iPluggers is a wonderful service that provides you with the newest releases in the genres of your playlist.
Sign up for an airplay account now: iPluggers: worldwide digital radio promotion | Radio sign up
 
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Andy1997

New Member
Hi, can you please add this website (www.creativedubs.com):
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CreativeDubs

There is Creative Commons licensed music available for free, which can all be used in commercial projects. The tracks on this site are ideally suited for your Tutorial, Intro, Let's Play, Montage, etc.
 

jorgear

Member
IMPORTANT NOTE: IPLUGGERS is NOT free for station to broadcast their artists and bands. On the site ipluggers.com, section Terms of Use, you can read this:

6b. The license you grant to iPluggers is non-exclusive (meaning you are free to license your Content to anyone else in addition to iPluggers), fully-paid and royalty-free (meaning that iPluggers is not required to pay you or anyone else deriving rights from you, this includes, but is not limited to, labels, sublabels, content owners, publisher, performance rights organizations, copyright organizations and music right organizations, for the use on the iPluggers Services of the Content that you post), sublicensable (so that iPluggers is able to use its affiliates, subcontractors and other partners such as Internet content delivery networks and wireless carriers to provide the iPluggers Services), and worldwide (because the Internet and the iPluggers Services are global in reach). Airplay media members are responsible, determined by applicable law in their country, for payment to music rights organizations for their right to broadcast music.
 
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