Freesound Forums

Hello everyone. I have a possible use of the sounds here on freesound, but I want to make sure it conforms to the CC license. From what I've seen, everyone here puts in a tremendous effort and I want to respect your intent and wishes. I checked other forum posts and the FAQ, but my situation is a bit different from the others described, so I figure I'd just ask away Here goes.

I just created my first Podcast episode using Garageband from Apple. I only used the music and sound effects contained in the program, which grants unlimited usage. I am about to start my second episode and thought I'd search around for other sound effects. During my search, I found the main CC website and then the link to this site. Here's my situation:

The Podcast is a personnel effort for my customers. I am an sales engineer for a semiconductor company and have a few major companies as my accounts. I have around 60-70 customers I delivered the first Podcast to and will keep the same distribution. I use the sound effects as an enhacement of the Podcast. The Podcast has three main sections: current company news, a discussion of a featured device, and a technical "tip" on good hardward design techniques or recomendations. A couple of simple examples of how I would use sounds here would be: 1) use a telephone ring sound to simulate one of our technical folks calling in to discuss the tech "tip" 2) maybe a funny spot of "here's your design without our parts" - sound of electrical equipment sizzling and sparking up, and then "with our parts" - sound of racecar nicely whoosing by.

So, my confusion stems from the "may not use to adevertise anthing other then the work" because

1) I'm using it as a personal method to communicate to my customers.
2) I will have a spot on my company's website were my customers can download the podcast
3) I don't get paid for this (do it on my own time on the weekends), nor do I pay anyone to "air" it as a commerical (radio, tv, adspot on website etc.)
4) Obviously, if more engineers use our parts, my company will benefit

I'm sorry for the long post, but I really want to do what is right, so I wanted to explain as best I could. If you don't think this is the appropriate place for me to get additional sounds, maybe you can point me to other cleaner resources.

Thanks in advance for your help
Carl

Hello Carl,

I'm sorry but there is only one answer I can give: your usage is a pretty 'twisted' version of 'add-use' which is difficult to interpret. None of us here are copyright lawyers, so it's very difficult to answer your question. The best reply would be: "ask a copyright lawyer". Perhaps if you could ask this message on the creative commons mailinglists, they would be able to give you a better reply?

sorry !

- bram

soy nuevo aqui en este foro. quisiera aportar algunos sonidos al proyecto free sound, pero no se como se hace.
por mas vueltas que le doy, no encuentro la manera de dar con la tecla.
apenas tengo conocimientos de ingles, asi que imaginaos mi dificultad. cualquier ayuda sera muy agradecida.
saludos.

Another option is to contact the author of each sample individually and request permission to use it in the way you describe. This is an alternative to optioning the file under the CC license, so you can avoid any potential headaches that may cause.

If you just want to use CC, it may clarify things to dive into the legal code:

Section 3(d)(ii)
You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in the paragraph immediately above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation. The exchange of the Work for other copyrighted works by means of digital file-sharing or otherwise shall not be considered to be intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation, provided there is no payment of any monetary compensation in connection with the exchange of copyrighted works.

You're not charging for the podcast, so you're not expecting monetary compensation. The only issue I would see here is gaining "commercial advantage". It doesn't seem like this will be an advertising vehicle, so you're safe there. I suppose what this might do is help your customer satisfaction and/or retention rate, which I suppose could be seen as giving commercial advantage.

I'm not sure if this would violate the license or not. It's probably wisest to do as bram says and ask a lawyer- though it's probably worth it to fire off an email to the CC staff first.