Finding music or video to Mix&Mash
Here are some places where you can find music or video snippets that are safe to use. Remember to check the individual licenses. For a fuller list, see OurMedia’s Open Media Centre. Please note that the Google Video search box above is not a resource for finding open Mix&Mash content.
Archives & repositories
Internet Archive
A nonprofit digital library with thousands of videos and audio recordings, many of which are in the public domain or available under Creative Commons licenses. The Audio archive is divided into sub-sections; the largest collections of music can be found under Net labels and Open Source Audio, where you’ll find hundreds of songs, from the Grateful Dead to classic recordings. Other collections, including Live Music and 78 RPMs, are available. Video material — including short films, documentaries, video clips and other footage — can be found in the Moving Images archive and the Prelinger Archives.
Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
A digital collection of over 6,000 cylinder recordings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These recordings can be freely downloaded or streamed online and are available in mp3 and wav formats. The wav files are unedited transfers of the original cylinders and have not been restored to remove clicks and other surface noise. They are not protected by copyright and can be used for either non-commercial or for-profit use.
Folktunes.org
An archive of folk tunes covering the blues, country and other styles of music. The website provides tagged browsing of artists, songs, collections and instruments. All material is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license.
Open Music Archive
A collaborative initiative to source, digitise and distribute out of copyright sound recordings. Recordings in the archive are hosted in the UK and are in the public domain in the UK. However, people based outside of the UK should be cautious about using them as compositions and recordings may be bound to different copyright laws internationally. The archive is open for anyone to use and contribute to.
Ourmedia.org
A free repository and open media community supported by the Internet Archive. You can browse content by media type or use the search engine to find podsafe audio and video. Thousands of user-created videos are available under Creative Commons licenses
BitTorrent & p2p file sharing
LegalTorrents
Provides a collection of Creative Commons licensed audio and video distributed via BitTorrent. A good source of electronic and indie music net label output including full albums and catalog compilations.
Jamendo
A p2p music distribution network that helps artists to promote, publish and be financially rewarded for their works. Artists have distributed more than 1,000 of their albums under Creative Commons licenses. The public can freely download, listen, copy and redistribute any music from Jamendo in accordance with the licensing agreement chosen by the artists.
Public Domain Torrents
Offers free and legal public domain movies for download via BitTorrent technology. You can choose from hundreds of classic films, animations and B-movies sorted by category. There are versions available for PDA, IPOD, PSP and some movies can be streamed via Google Video.
Catalogs & collections
CC Hits
A web-application that allows people to find and share Creative Commons or public domain music. Songs can be uploaded, ranked, tagged, streamed and downloaded. Licenses are clearly displayed next to each track. CC Hits is a Digg clone built using Ning, a web-based platform for creating social applications which can in turn be cloned to create new projects. The ranking system helps to promote high-quality CC music.
Common Content
An open catalog of Creative Commons licensed content that includes audio, video, images, text and web sites. Visitors can browse topic categories or use the search engine to find content.
Creative Commons Search
Allows you to find Creative Commons-licensed media that you can legally share and reuse for free, on search engines including Google, Yahoo and Flickr.
Flickr CC Search
Photo-sharing site Flickr has tens of millions of pictures clearly categorised by CC license.
FlickrStorm
Find even more Creative Commons licensed content on Flickr by using FlickrStorm's Magic Search.
Geograph
The Geograph British Isles project aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometre of the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
Icompetech
Provides a growing collection of royalty-free music compositions in MP3 format. Categories include piano, orchestral, classical, space opera, acid jazz, disco, Latin, polka, rap/RnB, reggae, rock/pop, holiday/Christmas and more. All music is available under a CC license and may be used for commercial and non-commercial projects.
Musikethos.org
Provides a growing collection of classical and jazz recordings made by professional musicians. The archives feature new recordings of music already in the public domain and contemporary music by composers who authorize the not-for-profit distribution of their work through the site. The recordings are available in mp3 format under a Creative Commons licence and terms require any recordings used be attributed mentioning the performing musician and the fact that the file was obtained through Musikethos.org.
Podsafe Audio
The site aims to provide a place where independent artists can upload music under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license for use in podcasts, mashups, Webcasts and elsewhere.
Wikipedia: Sound/list
This is a list of full length copyleft/public domain songs available on Wikipedia or the Commons. The list is alphabetically sorted by composer and all songs are available to download in ogg format.
ccMixter
A community site and tool for musicians to exchange ideas and build collaborative music projects. The free service allows users to share songs, remixes and audio samples licensed under Creative Commons. You can upload your original songs so that other people can remix your work. The CC license means you can legally download, sample and remix music on the site and share the results freely. ccMixter is chiefly a search engine that scours the Web for any music with a Creative Commons license and groups the results by tags. Listen to the tracks by streaming them before downloading them.
Remix Commons
A network of free culture projects in the UK promoting Remix Culture. You can find all types of content including audio and video recordings released under Creative Commons licenses.
Communities
ArtistServer.com
Provides free music hosting for indie and unsigned bands. Use the 'license' tab on the search bar to find music that is Creative Commons. All media carry a clearly visible license flag.
Deptford.tv
Deptford.TV is an audio-visual documentation of the regeneration process of the Deptford area, South-East London.The deptford.tv content is licensed under creative commons by-sa and artlibre
Dogmazic
A portal and community for free music downloads and artist information. All music is published by community members using various copyleft licenses.
ElectroBel
A Belgian underground electronic music community with thousands of copyleft songs released under a Creative Commons license. All works can be freely distributed and used for all non-commercial purposes.
MacJams.com
An online community and repository of music created by people using the Macintosh platform. All works are licensed under Creative Commons.
Open Music Factory
An independent musicians community where you can find all types of musical projects. Musicians collaborate by using the forums to communicate and post audio files which can be hosted at the Internet Archive or elsewhere. The site encourages musicians to upload their work using Creative Commons licences.
Soundclick
A music community website that features both signed and unsigned bands. This link takes you to the CC music genre that boasts over 200,000 tracks.
Documentaries, Movies, Video Clips
Blip.TV
A free videoblogging, podcasting and video sharing service with thousands of grassroots videos, many of which are licensed under Creative Commons.
Revver
A website that provides the tools for users to upload and share video clips. All videos use a Creative Commons Share-Alike license which permits redistribution.
Net labels
BeatPick
A London-based net label releasing music under Creative Commons licenses. The website lets you listen to full albums of all artists and there's also a streaming playlist of the month. Non-commercial projects can use the music for free.
Candy Bar
This Channel 4 microsite features a collection of UK video clips produced mainly by VJs for VJs. All clips published under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence.
Internet Archive Net labels
A comprehensive database of net labels releasing podsafe music. There are over 500 sub-collections most of which offer Copyleft/Creative Commons licensed music.
Loca Records
A Brighton (UK)-based copyleft label releasing music and videos under Creative Commons licenses.
Magnatune
An online label that represents hundreds of artists, Berkeley, Calif.-based Magnatune allows you to legally use their music in your remix. All Magnatune MP3s are licensed under Creative Commons and may be downloaded at no cost for remix use. Large catalog of artists with music across all genres. Select an album, select the "license" link and then go to "Non-commercial use" to download 128kbps MP3s.
Opsound
A wide-ranging open pool of copyleft music and sound files that enables copying, sharing, remixing and even selling of work by artists. Sound files are available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license, or placed in the public domain.
