Research Guides: Copyright-friendly resources for media projects: Music & Sound Effects

Cite Your Sources!

Although you may use many works without the permission of the author, you still need to cite your sources and/or credit the author. Check out this short video on Lynda.com on how to cite the images you use. (Log in using your W&M credentials.)

Music

The sites listed below provide access to public domain or creative commons licensed music.

Audionautix
Music composed and recorded by Jason Shaw and licensed under Creative Commons for use in audio visual projects.
ccMixter
Remixes and samples for creating your own remixes licensed by Creative Commons.
Creative Commons Search
The largest catalog of music under Creative Commons license with more than 25,000 albums. Includes rock, pop, jazz, hip-hop and dance tracks.
Free-Loops.com
Free-Loops.com provides free loops and audio clip downloads to the music production community.
Free Music Archive
The Free Music Archive is an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads. Compiled and managed by WFMU Radio.
Incompetech
Kevin MacLeod is a professional composer who creates royalty-free music that can be found on his site, incompetech.com.
Internet Archive Live Music Archive
All music in this Collection is from trade-friendly artists and is strictly non-commercial, both for access here and for any further distribution. This collection is maintained by the etree.org community.
Open Source Audio
A collection housed at the internet archive of user-contributed music. All music is released under Creative Commons licenses.
OpSound
Web site where musicians and sound artists upload their work under Creative Commons licenses.
Sound Cloud
Sound Cloud is a music sharing community for composers. While not all content carries creative commons licenses, much of it does.
World Hip Hop Beats
World Hip Hop Beats provides free downloads to beats under creative commons license 3.0 BY (attribution only - commercial uses allowed).

Sound Effects

These sites provide access to public domain or creative commons licensed sound effects.

99 Sounds
Contains several collections of high quality sounds created by sound designers. The collections are quite large and the audio quality is excellent.
Freesound
The Freesound Project aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps and more released under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus License.
Partners in Rhyme: Sound Effects
Collection of free sounds effects and web links to other online collections. Also includes royalty free tracks for purchase.
SoundBible.com
SoundBible.com offers free sound clips, including free and royalty free sound effects, for download in either wav or mp3 format.
Sound Jay
Offers a few hundred sounds and you don't need a log in. You may use the sounds on this website free of charge and royalty free in your projects but you are NOT allowed to post the sounds on any web site for others to download, link directly to individual sound files, or sell the sounds to anyone else. Remember to read Terms of Use before downloading and using the sound effects or music tracks. Most files are 16 bit stereo 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz high quality sound effects.