Freesound Forums

Hi,

as the title says, there are a some floating around where the license is CC0 but the author decided to write something like "give credit"/"don't forget to give credit" or similar in the description.

So do I have to give credit because the author decided to write that into the description or is it void because the license under which he released it is CC0? My guess as a non-lawyer is that it could possibly be seen as an amendment to the license, thereby overriding clauses in CC0.

So it seems that if I would want to use those sounds, I have pretty much two choices:

1. Attribute the author even though it's CC0 just to be safe.
Even though I would attribute the author, what constitutes "giving credit"? Is a text file with his name and link shipped with my game enough or do I have to make it visible while the player sees the image (that would be a no-go)? So even if I give credit, I would still have doubts with what "giving credit" constitutes.

2. Use a different sound which doesn't have possible legal issues.

Here's an example of one such sound:
https://freesound.org/people/Unaxete/sounds/329795/

I contacted the author of that sound about a month ago asking him to clarify his stance on attribution and if he could change the license to something that says attribution is required if it indeed is what he wants. Unfortunately I haven't heard back from him.

Hi there

This is a great question. As the sound has been published with a CC-Zero license you aren't legally obliged to attribute the sound, it doesn't matter what the uploader says in the description, CC0 is the license so it's really up to you if you want to credit or not. For the avoidance of any doubt, just take a screenshot of the dowloaded sound and it's license at the time of downloading:
https://freesound.org/people/fsnds/downloaded_sounds/

As for attribution...

You have many options and whichever suits you best. You can give credits in the game itself; as an appendix (text file or pdf given to consumer with the game); or page on your website.

Ideal attribution is as follows:

Title of the sound
Author (name or alias of uploader)
Source (Freesound URL)
License (the type of license that the sound has, e.g. CCBY 2.0)

You have to provide a URI (uniform resource indicator). URI in this context could refer to either the index number that Freesound uses to catalogue the sound, which is already part of the filename when you download e.g. 111035, but also the direct web address (URL) linking the original source material. In your case it will be both.

Hope this helps.

Resources:

I strongly recommend going through this page: Best Practices for Attribution - Creative Commons Wiki

I think should also tell year create sound too. Help know when copyright monopoly end.

SieuAmThanh wrote:
I think should also tell year create sound too. Help know when copyright monopoly end.

The date the sound was uploaded to freesound is supplied.

Copyright in Europe ends 70 years after the author's death,
so knowing the upload-date is an academic point for people alive now:
you'll have to wait at least at 70 years until it goes out of copyright.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyright_lengths#Table_of_copyright_durations_by_country

Maybe corporation make sound CC BY SA or sound from US before 1978, etc.

Also copyright law may change in future (I help convince people need big reform and show copyright law corruption). This is good example. Challenge: try find one person create some thing in time 50-70 years after their death (but not bad smell).