Research Guides: Finding Creative Commons Content: Audio

Openly Licensed Music

You can use other people's music for your project as long as you have permission or if it is openly licensed. These resources below are great for finding music that is licensed for reuse. Be sure to provide attribution to all content you use that was created by someone else.

Free Music Archive
Need music for your next project? The FMA has a huge library of openly licensed audio.
Videvo Audio
Videvo includes "thousands of free stock videos, motion graphics, music tracks and sound effects, all in one place." Some content is premium. You can filter to free and open content. For audio, select 'free clips' from the 'show all clips' drop down menu. Some content may require attribution, so check the licensing and usage information for the audio you plan to use.
Bandcamp Creative Commons Search
Many bands make their music open by providing a creative commons license. Bandcamp doesn't have a perfect way to find these bands, but the creative commons tag (this link) or searching the term "creative commons" will provide many options.
Creative Commons on Soundcloud
Creative Commons has a Soundcloud channel with many options.
YouTube Audio Library
Choose from thousands of songs and type of license (attribution required or not required). Add to your YouTube video after upload or view the library (this link) to download and use in various projects.
MusOpen
"We provide recordings, sheet music, and textbooks to the public for free, without copyright restrictions. Put simply, our mission is to set music free." Login required for downloads.

Openly Licensed Sounds

Sound Bible
"SoundBible.com offers thousands of free sound effects, sound clips, and straight up sounds." Various CC licenses.
Zapsplat
"Our ethos is simple, ZapSplat is here to benefit everyone... we love to help out not only up-and-coming creatives, but also some of the leading filmmakers, production companies, game developers, podcasters and more."
Login required. All content is free for any use but must include attribution (license info).
Videvo Royalty Free Sound Effects
Videvo offers royalty free clips that are openly licensed: 'once you download the clip, you may use it in as many projects as you like, forever. It's yours to keep, but this does not mean you "own" the clip; the copyright remains with the creator.'
Free Sound
"Freesound aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, ... released under Creative Commons licenses that allow their reuse." Login required for download.
CC Mixter
"This is a community music remixing site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses." Useful for creating music.