Freesound Forums

Bram
Thanks qubodup, that makes it easier as we can use only CC licenses.
"public domain" isn't a "CC" license, so we can substitute the "zero" license

Why is it important to use Creative Commons licenses only? For um.. 'style'? ^^

Either give away FREE sounds or don't!

No attribution!!!!!!

If I use say, 20 short sounds in a CD GAME project, and I have SCARCE liner note space this becomes a problem. Oh, but I want my stupid username listed on your liner notes, (ie. POP.wav sound by jerk001)

GIVE ME A BREAK!

And BTW, do we all have such egos, that I want my stupid forum user names listed on a CD? Either sell your freakin' sounds or give them away FREE! No strings (or attribution) attached.

If you, NEED to have your name UP IN LIGHTS, sell your freakin sounds and DEMAND a credit.

PUBLIC DOMAIN ONLY PLEASE!!!!

@ iamdj:
the people, that are uploading stuff here have spent some time on these samples. So, if all you have to do is to mention their name: what`s the problem about it? I`ll take a guess and say, that you have never uploaded anything to freesound.
This kind of people is making me think about leaving this place here, because why should I spent time for someone if I do get absolutely nothing for it? I still like the idea of sharing stuff and to have a look what other people do to get some kind of inspiration for yourself. But here a so many people, that never upload anything but download everything =(

iamdj,

Your comments could be considered offensive by most Freesound members and contributors.
Why do you believe you are a source of such wisdom that on your first post and before you uploaded any samples (will you ever) you should come here and criticize the spirit of Freesound?

Think of this as a club: membership is free but there are rules.
If you don't agree with the rules and don't intend to follow them, then don't join. Which means, don't download any samples from Freesound.
I am sure you will be more than happy to put your money where your mouth is and pay for any samples that you require so that you do not need to credit anyone.

m_O_m,

I can certainly understand your frustration. However, I would say that the benefit of interacting with the Freesound community more than justifies putting up with the occasional "rotten apple".
As Bram said once, although not exactly on these words, we know the system can be abused and we accept it as such.
When we upload samples we must do so with full conscience that some people may download them, use them and never credit the sample creator. We, the uploaders, must be aware of and accept this risk. If there is something you are not happy to share under these conditions, better not upload it to Freesound.
For myself i can only say that the benefit, inspiration and feedback that I have received from other users over the years has been greatly appreciated. As such, I will always be a member of Freesound.

iamdj
Either give away FREE sounds or don't!
{...blah, blah, blah...}

Poeople who download sounds only - want public domain People who contribute sounds prefer attribution non-commercial. It's most reasonable licence for me. Who wants to earn money using sounds should pay for them or get permission from the author, who can give his sounds for anyone HE wants.

'And for the want of the sound the point was lost'.

Trouble is, to be fair, sounds made from sampled intstruments, that were originally taken from Freesound, is a good example. no offence but have you heard many of the ""Leading"" company sample patch sets for there sampler and rom player instruments. Are you telling me that they should be putting your name into every sample the use in every patch library.

I don't disagree with many of the angles that are covered here, but I must admit that considering those instruments are then sometimes used in re sampling the sounds back into this site I kind of wonder if any 'Lack of Faith' in this area could cause the whole sampling world being sucked into a singularity again, with repercutions across the intire musical universe.

The sounds in there first instance. !! how to credit all those people in crowds you sampled? ratterlings in warehouses as people work,! angry farmers as you sample the animals ! etc etc.

Unless you yourself, talk into a mic in dead space, with just a mic, is there anything you can sample without someone getting anoyed or expecting to be credited.

Anyway, if it's important and you think you should hang on to it, because you took time to find the right noises or ambience or whatever, your not obliged to put it up here, just because your a member.

I think more or less, if you use Freesound, then it would be nice to see the ocasional 'Heads Up' on the CD sleave or whatever. But if your BT/ Tiesto/ or Sphongle you have to. (that last bit is a joke ...) your not obliged to.

Proxima4

I take your point tha tthe recordings themselves often involve others (crowds, cars, machines, whatever...) so the recorder of the sound does not actually have the credit for creating the sound. Whithout going intot the specifics of the law, recordings made in public spaces do not require any special kind of license or credit. Commercial companies such as TV and film makers do exactly the same as Freesounders do when they want to record this kind of ambiences for their productions: the set up their mics and record.

For recordings made in private spaces, such as shops, the recorder should seek agreement fro the shop staff. Not saying they always do, but as a matter of politness, if not compliance with any specific law. Again, when such permission is granted, shop owners do not usually ask to be credited.

Finally, if recording a specific 'event' such as a performing artist on the street, one MUST obtain their permission, and explain how the recording would be used. Again, without going into law or copyright specifics, in this case you are directly sampling someone's work, so permission (in writting if possible) must be granted.

Now, to be fair, wheather people involved ask to be credited or not, most Freesounders will post very specific descriptions of where and how the sounds were obtained. Which in a way credits the people involved.

That is the recording aspect of it.
As far as te use of the sounds goes, Freesound operates a within the Creative Commons License. We did not invent it and we are not the only ones using it. This sets the rules by which we play.
It has been questioned often and maybe it is not ideal, or not ideal for everyone, but the fact that all sounds in Freesound are under this license means that it is very clear to any user downloading a sample what his/hers responsibilities are. Should we allow multiple types of licenses that the uploader could choose from when posting a sound, the situation would be far more confusing!

Freesound is not the only place on the web (or the world) offering samples (or even free samples, for that matter).
So if somoene does not want to adheere to the erms and conditions, they should procure their samples elswhere.
Most uploaders are really pragmatic about this: should someone come here, download one of my samples and use it woulthout crediting me would I know? Most likely, no. Would I be upset about it if I found out? Most likely not, unless their song made it to the top charts. Would I do anything about it? Most likely not, as in the point before.

Now, what p*sses me off is when people come here and start boasting "I am gonna take all your samples and I am not going to credit anyone! Mua-ah-ah!".
I think that is just rude and completely unnecessary.

OK, I had my rant. I feel better now...

Sure, there are situations where attribution is not possible. Station calls, music playing in a restaurant, and so on. But that doesn't mean the samples can't be used. One could simply ask the uploader kindly for permission to use the sample without attribution. Explain the situation. I have in the past given my permission to someone asking me if they could use a sample where no attribution would be possible. And I'm sure many others here have done so too.
Attribution is part of the license and that makes sense. Also, it can be very fun to see after a while where your sounds are used. But the license is not holy. The creator has the final say, can their sounds be used in special cases without attributing? You don't know until you ask. As we say in The Netherlands: You've got a no, but you can get a yes.

Indeed. Most uploaders will be happy to be contaacted by people intending to use their asmples. I cannot think of a situation where I would say no to someone who explained to me that it is impossoble or impratical to give attribution to any of my samples which they intended to use.
If lack of space or other constraints exist, most uploaders would waive direct attribution to them and accept a simle mention that samples from Freesound were used.

It should also be pointed out that the simple act of communicating with the uploader can be very rewarding in itself to the person downloading the sample. You may find out that the uploader has or is willing to provide other samples that are better quality or better suited for the purpose youhave in mind.
You may learn abut how the sample was made and learn to replicate it... etc.
Plus, most people are nice when approached correctly and you will feel nice and wamr inside instead of feeling like someone who is taking stuff without giving anything in return.

And that's the point if you're not accepting license ask contributor, they often agree with many wishes

I would prefer 'attribution' or 'public domain' - on the couple of sounds I've contributed I specifically stated that they are Public Domain - go ahead, use them any way you want. But I understand those who want attribution.
With 'Non-Commercial' licenses and I'd never be able to use freesound.org. I'm doing stories for a commercial website. All the sound makers I've used are credited as well as freesound.org itself, and I assume that it will lead to opportunities for those people.
Thanks everyone for this great site!

AlienXXX
It should also be pointed out that the simple act of communicating with the uploader can be very rewarding in itself to the person downloading the sample. You may find out that the uploader has or is willing to provide other samples that are better quality or better suited for the purpose youhave in mind.
You may learn abut how the sample was made and learn to replicate it... etc.
Plus, most people are nice when approached correctly and you will feel nice and wamr inside instead of feeling like someone who is taking stuff without giving anything in return.

I think that public domain is the best license for freesound, because many people who need sound for their production, research, or whatever don't generally want to have to deal with complicated or restrictive licenses in the midst of whatever else they are working on. For anyone really interested, you can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain

I think public domain describes best the actual 'spirit' of what freesound is about. Making sound freely available to everyone!

The problem with public domain is that in many jurisdictions there doesn't appear to be any mechanism for putting something in the public domain - you can say that you're putting it in the public domain, but it's not clear that this has any legal validity.

The CC0 licence (which didn't exist when this thread started) is probably a better alternative, with much the same effect as putting something in the public domain.

Texariox, the CC0 license looks great.

If I say my sound is in PD, then l'm the one who'd sue and I won't, but I suppose someone else claim that they made my sound and then sue someone else using it. Or now that I think about it, someone could say that a sound is PD but then change their mind, and 10 years later sue someone. So I guess you're right, needs clarification.

I've downloaded from Freesound from time to time. Saw this and figured I should add my 2c...even though it's a pretty old thread now :lol:

I don't mind attributing stuff in my own works. But I increasingly see a problem with having any kind of "friction" on open licenses and have gradually moved towards a PD/PD-equivalent(particularly something like CC0, but I'll just refer to PD henceforth) in my own works. In all dimensions, the practical effects of scale eventually overwhelm and break all the legal machinery of a license. With attribution in particular:

Time
All content eventually becomes a historical artifact at best, something you might find in a museum hundreds of years later: "Sample of birds chirping, 2010." The samples on freesound will probably be around 30 years hence, even if freesound itself isn't and the original database is corrupted or incomplete making it difficult to attribute. Just look at what has happened to the general Web with sites from the 90s. Seeking out and attributing authors from 30 years ago could be a great pound-the-pavement detective challenge, but it doesn't need to be mixed with the practical aspects of using a sample. With more restrictive licenses, it's even worse since you have to come up with contact information to seek permission, even if the author is dead and the work has gone to heirs.

Quantity/Density
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVVRopIHYXM
This is a fan-video from a Japanese video-sharing site Nico Nico Douga. It's rife with copyright violation, but the real point is that it's a video whose purpose is to sample EVERYTHING popular on Nico Nico into one giant medley of sound and video. With an average sampling rate of 3+ sources per second, there literally isn't any room to attribute everyone who contributed. Once you start thinking in terms of multi-generational derivatives, this problem only becomes more and more intractable.

Redistribution
When you use a search engine, all the work of finding useful, relevant content is done for you. This happens in spite of the fact that the Web's full of spam and scamming. By analogy, middlemen who repackage content have a purpose for samples, too - to add value by grouping them into a useful context for the musician/sound-designer/filmmaker/gamemaker. The freesound software does some of this work, more than most of us would do by ourselves unaided. But we have to include the possibility that someone else can do it better - e.g., that they could put raw musical samples into a format like SoundFont and then distribute that as a complete library, adding value well beyond the scope of what freesound is capable of now.

The legal territory is ugly when looking at something like a SoundFont repackaging - "the samples are the same samples, but users access them differently." Hoo boy. All the bickering necessary to work out these new use-cases just discourages them from being tried in the first place. So again, PD comes up as a benefit to speeding innovative work.

That said, I'd still use freesound(and maybe someday upload something ) if it were mixed-license.

I want to use only "attribution-noncommercial"
I assume that people are decent. Users often send an e-mail when in doubt. I have never refused a request.

And what is commecial? A artist that shows the paintings she made, on Youtube? Not for me!

:lol:

e.g. See: http://www.youtube.com/user/Sumpfhexchen#p/a/u/1/X1wRjdmO5JA

This very nice artist used several sounds of me, and I like it. She is very polite and correct in here behavior. And there are more of these examples of nice people.

:wink:

If asked personaly I'd go for attribution or public domain.
Anything I put in here you guys can use any way you want anyhow.

Have a nice evening!

-Tom

Attribution is enough, because it states: "you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor...". Licensors and authors can specify what they expect - on their profile page. Alternatively sampling plus.

CC licences are worth to support as the freesound project, and using them - supports them.

I would not add the "noncommercial". Either you are not afraid to share your work (being aware that others will use it) or you are (and/or want some profits); recent weeks I had an unpleasant PM experience with someone here on FS, and I guess - if the NC part would be available - it would cause more friction between people. I admit - initially even I had some thoughts whether to add something or not to FS in exchange, but I changed my mind and decided to interact, without thinking "what if...". Variety of licences gives you more options and some inner peace, but clean threshold gives you more inner freedom and courage to change and eventually - more inner peace at all.

(-;

Besides - using free sounds does not means that you do nothing else but quick copy/paste. Whoever uses the sounds - usually works hard, creative (and sometimes long) - to make their own expression, whether it is audio/video or CD album or something else. We live in (co-)creative times, and creativity requires access to various resources.