New podcaster horribly confused by music licensing

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Permalink Reply by Mike Sharpe on January 30, 2010 at 3:22pm

If you know the artist, contact them, and ask if they are happy to let you use that track, if so, ask for written permission. The Worse is that they will say is no.

Quite a few songs, you can use for free, as they're either Public Domain. Most just require you to mention them. Others just prevent you from selling them, such as. One site is here: http://www.archive.org/

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Lowell on January 30, 2010 at 3:59pm

Best way to protect yourself...get permission to use the song.

Magnatunes lets you buy a single track for use as a podcast theme song and the ones I've seen are excellent value.

You can use www.archive.org (look for open source audio) for material licensed in the public domain OR with a creative commons license that permits your use for the podiobook. Your podiobook will be "Creative Commons - Attribution - No Commercial - No Derivatives" so you're going to be ok with music that's Attribution/No Commercial.

Usually on www.archive.org, you can find the person who uploaded the file in the xml meta data files and email them to ask permission as well.

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Permalink Reply by Gregory Lyons on January 30, 2010 at 4:27pm

Wow - that was fast - thank guys!

I think I'm starting to get it. But as a follow on, below I attached what Music Alley says their rules are. The way I read this is I can use anything I find on their site in my Podiobook as long as I give them attribution. Yes? Or do I still need to contact the artist?

Thanks again for helping me navigate the legal system.

==============================

http://www.musicalley.com/music/catch.php

I get all this music for free, so what is the catch?

Our goal is to make it easier for you—the producer—to get access to music for your show, and easier for the artists to get their music played on podcasts.

All we ask is that when you play music on your show that you found and downloaded here that you say so. You can do this by either:

1. Saying during your show "Some of the music provided tonight from Mevio's Music Alley. Check it out at 'music.mevio.com'"
2. Playing one of our bumpers during your show. (Coming soon!!)

We also ask that you link back to Mevio's Music Alley in your show notes for those shows that include music from this site. http://music.mevio.com.

That's not asking too much is it?

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Lowell on January 31, 2010 at 3:51pm

That's your license to do what you want.

Just make sure to put that statement in your closing credits - and I'd actually credit the artist and song so we can find them.

According to this you dont have to ask permission -- this is the blanket license for the site. But let the artist know you found their music and where you're going to use it in case they'd like to promote it on their end too

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Permalink Reply by Gregory Lyons on January 31, 2010 at 4:04pm

Awesome! That's how I read the site too. Thank you so much.

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