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Free Sound Content

Important: Even if something is free to use, there still might be licensing restrictions you need to follow. Please ask if you have questions or doubts about exactly how you are allowed to use something.

Free Sound Effects

  • freesound contains loads of noises, soundscapes, and sound effects—the assigned license is plainly visible in the description of the sound, and you can mouse over the icons to learn more
  • The YouTube Audio Library has sound effects labeled for reuse in videos "and other content that you create"
  • SoundBible provides royalty-free sounds that are either in the public domain or were assigned a CC BY license

Arrow pointing to Reuse limiter in Sound Cloud

 

Free Music

  • The YouTube Audio Library also has music you are allowed to download and reuse
  • ccMixter contains samples and remixes that have Creative Commons licenses
  • SoundCloud lets you limit your search to audio tracks licensed for reuse (see image on right)—click into a track to see the full details about the license

Providing Attribution for Creative Commons Materials

There are best practices for providing attribution when you use materials with Creative Commons licenses. It typically looks like this:

"Title of the thing you used" by author/creator is licensed under Creative Commons license

You should also link to the actual item, the creator's user or account page (if possible), and the text of the CC license. Here is what a real example might look like:

"Tango" by Adrian Shake is licensed under CC BY 3.0

If it helps, here is a list of links to the different Creative Commons licenses:

  • CC BY (just need to provide attribution)
  • CC BY-SA (need to provide attribution and put a comparable license on your own work if you "remix, transform, or build upon" the material in some way)
  • CC BY-ND (need to provide attribution and cannot transform or modify the original)
  • CC BY-NC (need to provide attribution and cannot use the material for commercial purposes)
  • CC BY-NC-SA (need to provide attribution, cannot use for commercial purposes, and must assign a comparable license if you modify the original material)
  • CC BY-NC-ND (need to provide attribution, cannot use for commercial purposes, and cannot modify the original material)
Subjects: English