Freesound Forums

If you are working in commercial areas - then I suggest you either purchase samples, create your own, or in the case of this site, ask permission of the sample owner.

In the commercial arena - you may be asked to sign documents stating in the fine print that "this is all your own work". So if if the shit hits the fan, somebody has something to answer for. You have to have your licences and permission grants all in order.

Take this for instance.....I go here....

http://www.bell-labs.com/project/tts/voices.html

I type in a phrase and like the way it sounds. I save it. I upload it to "free sound project". You like it and use it in a commercial project - Bell Labs hear about it and go after the people you did the work for. There solicitors are now asking where YOU got it from - you downloaded it from "free sound project" no questions asked. With a law suit looming - you suss out who did the sample, you ask them where they got it from. You get the website I mentioned above.............you go to that website and you find written at the bottom of the webpage. "For non-commercial use only". You are in deep shit - and you are finished in the commercial arena.

Okay - this is extreme. My point is, if you are going to get free samples, and you do have plans of doing commercial work, then you better find out a little about the sample you are going to use.

fight fight fight fight fight :x :evil: :twisted: :!: :x

No need for fighting ... there's enough of that in the world without our assistance.

I'm not a lawyer either, but I dabbled in the study of entertainment law so I know enough to be dangerous ...

Now sawtooth has an excellent point. The moderators reviewing the samples uploaded cannot possibly know if the person uploading really has the right to give that sound away. The sounds I have uploaded all were created and/or recorded solely by me but who really knows? I could have gotten them straight from a sample library and uploaded them. Unless you've got a soundprint library of every sample in the universe there's no way to know definitively if I'm really telling the truth when I say "I myself programmed the synth, I myself plunked the keys, I myself hit record, I myself created the wave file from that recording" even though I am. So for commercial uses you should always be sure to cover your bases and frankly, this isn't the place to be gathering your material. If you like the work some people have posted the wisest course of action to get those sounds, or similar ones (even *better quality*) is to contact the person who uploaded them and inquire about using them in a commercial product, or offering them a reasonable contract to create new sounds especially for you.

It's the same I caution people with photos and artwork. First: just because it's on the web does not mean you're free to use it. Second, even if you secure all the copyrights you might be missing something still, e.g. a photo of a person or people: that is the person's right to display their likeness which outright trumps copyright.

A clear and easy to understand example of the photo thing: You license a "stock photo" of a pregnant woman. What you don't have (and every real photographer carries these everywhere they go) is a "Standard Model Release Form". Now, you take that photo and put it on a Right-To-Life website. That's where you're really setting yourself up to litigation. Turns out, the woman in the photo not only is pro-choice but actually the mayor of some small town and has plans of running for governor. Guess what you just did? Yep, you unwittingly launched a smear campaign. Oh, you can't begin to calculate the damages ... be careful out there people.

I'd just like to add to the last post.

As I understand all copyright law (and I've been a sound professional for 20+ years), if the sample or music is recognisable and it can be proven, then you are in breach of copyright. The size of the sound is IRRELEVANT - it can be a nanosecond if you can prove it.

So I've been on this site 5 minutes and I have already recognised sounds from the commercial libraries, including the Hollywood Edge sound effects library. These guys are pretty motivated when it comes to the copyright of their libraries. One of the samples I listened to was credited as Hollywood Edge, although s/he didn't credit a few other samples they had that I also recognised from that library. How do I know? I use them daily. You just know where they're from because you hear them all the time.

This person happily gave away a bunch of these samples to someone requesting them on a forum, without mentioning that the sounds were not free from copyright. That person was not free to give those sounds away, and the person receiving them really should be careful how they are used.

So the onus is on the people uploading to make sure their samples are copyright free, as they are the ones giving permission for their use. The onus is ALSO on the user of the samples to MAKE SURE they are copyright free.

I'm all in favour of sound being free, but you have to have some integrity. If someone earns their living out of recording sound and selling it on CDs for the use of program makers, then they should have some protection. I assume this site has protected itself legally, but the users of the site should be aware of their legal obligations as well.

Grr, this is not the first time I hear this!

Instead of talking about possibly illegal sounds on freesound, why not help the freesound community REMOVING them from freesound so we don't get into trouble??

The whole point of the "mark this sound as illegal" above EVERY sound is just that.

Please please please people, it is impossible for us (admins) to know every soundin commercial libraries, so there is no way for us to spot all bad sounds. Give us a bleedin' hand! It is utmost important that freesound stays as far away as possible from illegality!!

- bram

Going back to the specifics of the license under which sounds here are released (hopefully legally!), I like the idea of being able to choose a license, although it has to be within a certain range to avoid really confusing those who want to download the sounds for their own use. When I started the Open Music Registry, it was specific to the Open Audio License, but that turned out to not work very well. I ended up allowing other licenses that were closely related (e.g., the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, which ended up superseding the OAL anyway). But the concept of "free (liberated) as long as you give credit and make your derivative works free (liberated)" had to exist in those licenses to stay with the original theme of the site.

For this site, if contributors could choose from different CC licenses, it would also be important to not confuse people, perhaps through the use of icons to show what is required, what is permitted, and what is forbidden (which might or might not be the same symbology as used by Creative Commons). It might also be nice to allow specifying multiple licenses in case the contributor wanted to leave the option to the user (I do this for some photos that are dually licensed under CC:ASA and the morgueFile license).

Those looking for "completely free for commercial use" should look to the public domain. That's far riskier than it sounds, however, because many so-called "public domain" sources (especially on the Web, i.e., the most convenient place to look) are actually unknown-source collections that would be very risky -- foolhardy, really -- to use for commercial purposes.

And yes, I'm new here, so I'm still learning the site.

I really think it's just that these terms and agreements about the liscensing of the samples is kind of rhetoric and a little confusing but in a legal prespective it holds up pretty well.

it's really confusing, mainly because the GPL allows commercial redistribution.

GPL has nothing to do with the freesound project so i dont get why your confused

It's about the inclusion of a freesound sound in a GPL licensed project.

I have to agree there are misconceptions with the current license available.

The 1.0 legal code states:

"...if You choose to use the original Work as a whole, You must either use the Work as an insubstantial portion of Your Derivative Work(s) or transform it into something substantially different from the original Work. In the case of a musical Work and/or audio recording, the mere synchronization ("synching" of the Work with a moving image shall not be considered a transformation of the Work into something substantially different."

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/legalcode

People who are using these sounds in video/image based projects and not musical ones are technically violating the actual license. The Attribution 2.5 license didn't seem to have this same problem.(but I'd double check reading through it because I was tired when I read it the first time)

But irregardless of the license if your going to use any sounds on here commercially you really need to check with the user to see how they were made. And you might as well get a back up of permission to use.

Hi there.

The mere synchronization ("synching" of the Work with a moving image shall not be considered a transformation of the Work into something substantially different, but it may be considered as an insubstantial portion of Your Derivative Work(s).

All depends on what is considered "insubstantial portion"

Freesound masterminds are aware of the problems related to this license and, as Bram mentioned before, Freesound will eventually switch to another license if a better solution is not found.

But, please, keep coming with this kind of talking, it helps us all.

Thank you very much.
Take care.

I happen to be reasonably happy with the license freesound uses, from a contributors point of view. I'm not sure I want to see it opened up, particularly to commercial usage. A lot of the grousing about the license seems to be from folks who want to use sounds in a commercial projects. Well, shoot, if you make money from sounds you should pay your way. If you like a freesound sound then ask the originator and offer to pay. You get a right-for-you commercial license and probably won't have to put the freesound on your credits roll either which seemed to be another sticking point.

What's nice about the sampling license is it draws that line. If you don't want to pay and make no money, you show some respect in the credits somewhere and draw from a wider pool than you can afford to shoot. If I record sounds on my dime I don't want people using it to make their fx budgets cheaper. I want people who otherwise wouldn't have a wide range of sounds to have a better choice without the fear of the big bad copyright stick. Commercial users go around the world sueing other people for copying their stuff, so they can show some respect here - with their wallets! That's presumably what commercial sound libraries sort out, so pay up

as far as I see it we will switch to a dual licensing scheme: attribution and attribution-non-commercial.

I'm going to run a poll on the various options.

- bram

ermine
I happen to be reasonably happy with the license freesound uses, from a contributors point of view. I'm not sure I want to see it opened up, particularly to commercial usage. A lot of the grousing about the license seems to be from folks who want to use sounds in a commercial projects. Well, shoot, if you make money from sounds you should pay your way. If you like a freesound sound then ask the originator and offer to pay. You get a right-for-you commercial license and probably won't have to put the freesound on your credits roll either which seemed to be another sticking point.

Sorry but the license is already opened up for commercial usage in many ways. Especially in musical production. The license is also trickier than it appears which really means there could be a lot of other commercial uses for it already.(where a sound is considered "insignificant" Its nice to just hear sound and all but I'm sure a lot of people go here to actually attempt to use it in their works. I certainly would not be here if all the sounds were unusable in a free sense.

The more useful the site actually is the more likely you're going to get more contributions as well. If someone makes a million bucks validly using your samples under the license they probably can get away with giving you squat. In some ways that's very annoying but at the same time you are given a generous database of your own to try to make money with or just plain use. Depending on how well this idea sits with you, you should think carefully about whether you really want to release something for those kinds of uses. You can always wait and if you feel like releasing it later you'll still have that option.

generous database of your own to try to make money with

I just don't get why all the license carping is from pro folks who are coming at this with a hey, it doesn't let me use it in my latest commercial project as I see fit etc. Let's face it, pros are short of time and got lots of money, that's why they're pros. Finding sounds on here isn't easy, and I'd guess commercial libraries make that easier. I hear what you're saying, give free commercial use and maybe commercial users will put something back. Yeah, right. These are the same commercial companies suing 12-year old downloaders and the sort of people who didn't like the original 17 years copyright defined by the Founding Fathers of the US constitution, so they lobbied congress and extended it to about 200 years? The sort of people that want to encrypt everything and DRM every last bit? An attitude to the rest of the world basically summed up in 'All your stuff belong to us'. Individual pros might wish to be so free and easy but I bet the legal department has it sewn up so if you are working on a company dime you don't even have the right to give anything back to FS.

These commercial users have the power, they can do what they darn well like. Let's face it, even if the next blockbuster is full of freesounds and no credits we can hardly demand poor Bram to step up to the plate and sue the pants off the MPAA 'cos a) he'd lose even if he's right and b) he's got more important things to do, like life. So the license means squat as far as commercial users are concerned. But the MP/RI AA aren't getting my sounds on a free license unless I get theirs for free. I'm sure they don't want them anyway, but if they do they'll have to ask me nicely, with greenbacks. What's so hard about the concept of you make money, I make money, you don't - I don't but FS gets a mention? That way people learn, can make art, have fun, and if/when they go pro they can pay up.

Anyway, Bram's looking at changing this, so cast your vote! Maybe freesound is full of pros who want commercial usage - the results will show that and it'll be changed accordingly.

ermine
...aren't getting my sounds on a free license unless I get theirs for free. I'm sure they don't want them anyway, but if they do they'll have to ask me nicely, with greenbacks

ermine

generous database of your own to try to make money with

I just don't get why all the license carping is from pro folks who are coming at this with a hey, it doesn't let me use it in my latest commercial project as I see fit etc. Let's face it, pros are short of time and got lots of money, that's why they're pros. Finding sounds on here isn't easy, and I'd guess commercial libraries make that easier. I hear what you're saying, give free commercial use and maybe commercial users will put something back. Yeah, right. These are the same commercial companies suing 12-year old downloaders and the sort of people who didn't like the original 17 years copyright defined by the Founding Fathers of the US constitution, so they lobbied congress and extended it to about 200 years? The sort of people that want to encrypt everything and DRM every last bit? An attitude to the rest of the world basically summed up in 'All your stuff belong to us'. Individual pros might wish to be so free and easy but I bet the legal department has it sewn up so if you are working on a company dime you don't even have the right to give anything back to FS.

These commercial users have the power, they can do what they darn well like. Let's face it, even if the next blockbuster is full of freesounds and no credits we can hardly demand poor Bram to step up to the plate and sue the pants off the MPAA 'cos a) he'd lose even if he's right and b) he's got more important things to do, like life. So the license means squat as far as commercial users are concerned. But the MP/RI AA aren't getting my sounds on a free license unless I get theirs for free. I'm sure they don't want them anyway, but if they do they'll have to ask me nicely, with greenbacks. What's so hard about the concept of you make money, I make money, you don't - I don't but FS gets a mention? That way people learn, can make art, have fun, and if/when they go pro they can pay up.

Anyway, Bram's looking at changing this, so cast your vote! Maybe freesound is full of pros who want commercial usage - the results will show that and it'll be changed accordingly.

Not all commercial users are huge corporations or millionaires. Some are shareware game programmers, or someone making tapes to sell out of their basement.

shareware game programmers, or someone making tapes to sell out of their basement

Cool. You wanna use a FS sound in a commercial project - talk to the author. Or shoot the sound yourself. If it isn't worth an email, it's no big deal if you don't have the sound, right? If it is a big deal or you have to get on a plane to record it, it's worth the effort of an email and maybe the price of a beer?

Shareware ain't free. So why should its components be? Don't wanna talk to the author because you might have to pay - heck, make it freeware, or even better, open source. Why is commercial use causing such chiseling? If you aren't going to work for your users for free, then I ain't gonna work for you for free. Just what part of that is so hard to understand?

Ermine your responses really bother me, not because of your opinions but the fact that you have posted sounds on this site and the sampling license they have been released under do allow free uses of those sounds in commercial ways. I hope you're aware of that.

Dual license makes most sense. Let those who want to release for free or at least with a clearer more open ended attribution license do so and let those who want to only release on a non profit basis do so.

Honestly, I don't think its that hard to find sounds on this site. Its usually here or it isn't. The sound previews and sample packs make it easy to download a lot and listen through later to find more of what you actually need.

There are people and groups who do freely give away sounds. Great examples of people who've practically given away excellent samples are:

1) The G-Town church project. Tobias Marburger, a commercial composer now I believe. Excellent percussion sounds.(Same license as FreeSounds)

2) University of Iowa - some excellent recordings of instruments with note ranges http://theremin.music.uiowa.edu/MIS.html

3) Philharmonia Orchestra http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/thesoundexchange/sound_samples/sample_libraries/

I've also found the drum samples of Max Albelga helpful as well as some on this site. I don't think most people posting drum cymbal hits up here just put them up for people to listen to.