Freesound Forums

Good evening.

My name is Daniel and I write music under the handle "Brandon Walsh". I have written a bunch of tracks and created some SFX for an upcoming iOS/Android game. I use a bunch of SFX off this site for the game, some mixed with my own stuff of course. I have ensured that they are all either under the "CC" or "Public domain" license.

I want to properly credit everyone and ensure that there is no legal nor ethical issues with me using some SFX from this site. For the CC and Public domain licenses, is it sufficient to include every uploaders alias on this site in the "credits" screen or do I need to include any further information?

I really want to make sure that everything is done properly prior to the game being released so any help you can give me is greatly appreciated. I have read the CC license and we should be fine to include the SFX even for commercial purposes if we properly attribute the work. I am just curious as to exactly how it needs to be done.

Thank you for your patience,

Kind Regards,
Daniel

Hi, thanks for asking.

"CC" is not a license. Please double check. I assume you mean the "Creative Commons Attribution 3.0" (CC-BY 3.0) license?

Basic credits info is available at http://www.freesound.org/help/faq/#licenses-1 .

I do not know whether the CC-BY 3.0 license prohibits use of DRM in works made with it, so I will not comment on that.

Since there is no way to provide a readme.txt document with iOS games, you need to include in your credits for CC-BY 3.0 sounds:
Name of the author
Link to the author website - for example user profile on freesound (clickable, if technically reasonably possible).
Name of the sound (title)
Link to the sound website (clickable, if technically reasonably possible).
Name of the license.
Link to the license.

See 4.b. of the license text

For CC0 sounds (also called "public domain"), you don't need to give attribution, but I highly recommend it, to avoid false claims of ownership and as thanks to the authors.

I recommend that you format the credits the following way:

Sounds from Freesound.org:

Under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license:

Worrying Transition by qubodup
Worrying Transition by qubodup
...

Under CC0:

Water Filter.flac by qubodup
Water Filter.flac by qubodup
...

You can format it in different ways of course. If you can make the username/soundname/licensename clickable links, this would avoid having to spell out the URLs.

I hope this is helpful. Does Apple allow external links, for example in credits in software sold on their store?

If it is problematic for you to create a list of properly formatted names, I would offer my help. I would need a list (ideally plaintext, newline-separated) of the unaltered file names or freesound sound IDs and info on what the format needs to be. HTML is all right?

Note: 1. If any of the sounds you used is licensed under CC-BY-NC 3.0, you can not sell the game legally. 2. As far as I interpret the "Sampling+" license, you may not create trailer/advertisements of your game with Sampling+-licensed sounds playing back in the trailer (3.c.).

Thank you for your answer.

I am currently using, apart from my own sounds and stuff, the following SFX from this site:

http://www.freesound.org/people/Gauraa/sounds/184833/ (CC0 1.0 Universal) "gauraa"
http://www.freesound.org/people/ermfilm/sounds/130014/ (CC Attribution 3.0 Unported) "ermfilm"
http://www.freesound.org/people/oscii/sounds/180805/ (CC Attribution 3.0 Unported) "oscii"
http://www.freesound.org/people/steveygos93/sounds/80401/ (CC Attribution 3.0 Unported) "steveygos93"
http://www.freesound.org/people/bspiller5/sounds/157616/ (CC0 1.0 Univerasl) "bspiller5"
http://www.freesound.org/people/JustinBW/sounds/70112/ (CC Attribution 3.0 Unported) "justinbw"
http://www.freesound.org/people/Benboncan/sounds/60648/ (CC Attribution 3.0 Unported) "benboncan"
http://www.freesound.org/people/JoelAudio/sounds/85568/ (CC0 1.0 Universal) "joelaudio"

From what I can gather they are all under a license that would make it OK for us to use these sounds commercially. It will be quite difficult for us to fit all the info necessary into the game itself. We are dealing with a game that uses a font that gives us roughly 40 chars per line, and not very many lines vertically. Would it be sufficient to include a statement that says "This game uses SFX from Freesound.org. For more information click HERE" which would open up the native browser (Safari, or whatever on Android) to my home page where I detail exactly which sounds are used, by whom and so on?

Thank you for being thorough about giving credit.

BrandonWalsh wrote:
It will be quite difficult for us to fit all the info necessary into the game itself.

BrandonWalsh wrote:
We are dealing with a game that uses a font that gives us roughly 40 chars per line, and not very many lines vertically. Would it be sufficient to include a statement that says "This game uses SFX from Freesound.org. For more information click HERE" which would open up the native browser (Safari, or whatever on Android) to my home page where I detail exactly which sounds are used, by whom and so on?

I'd recommend to have the "more info here" link direct to an "extra" credits screen with all the info, which would prevent from bloating your primary credits screen and would not require internet connection or the website to be up.

I'd suggest this format:

Sounds from Freesound.org:

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license:
Anvil & Steel Hammer 2.wav by Benboncan
ruber duck big 1 by ermfilm
bass_short_001 by oscii
Explosion2.wav by steveygos93
Crack and Stress.wav by JustinBW

CC0:
DRAGON_ROAR.wav by JoelAudio
Crowd by Gauraa
Fire Breath.wav by bspiller5

Thank you for your time and patience in this matter.

I will suggest to the developer that we go with the second suggestion, that is a generic statement in the credits screen with a "click here" link that will open another credit window, within the game and thus not requiring any connection to the Internet, which will contain the information you suggest.