Royalty-Free Music: Distribution and Rights

There’s a nice thread on the WillVideoForFood Forum about music for online video. Some nice links inside the thread.

In a recent post, I said that you can get my music for free, royalty-free use by visiting http://music.ofnalts.com (which takes you to a Podshow site).

But then I realized two things:

  1. It’s harder than I thought to actually download these songs. Has anyone had any luck? I tried and gave up.
  2. Someone pointed out that I may not be allowed to distribute these loops. I was under the impression that I can distribute a song I create in Garageband but obviously not give out the loops (I’ve bought almost every $100 loop package from Mac except for the Voices one). Does anyone know? Maybe someone from Mac will stumble into this and enlighten us.

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8 Comments

  1. It is very hard to do. I agree. I post some music on my site but is emebeded from Sony/ BRIGHT COVE. I sydincate it, or publish it. Which is totally different from downloading. But one can do this legally and earn a small profit at the same time.

  2. If you put them in a zip file and upload them to the site directly then give people links to them, they should be able to directly download them.

  3. I asked that question (“are we allowed to distribute music we create from Apple loops?”) at my local Apple store, after not finding it in any of the documentation that came with my Mac, and was told we can do whatever we like with it – even charge for it.

    An answer from the “Genius” at the Los Gatos store isn’t as good as one from a lawyer in Cupertino, but I’m trusting it for now.

  4. When you installed the software, or it was installed for you, (so it was probably at first run) you agreed to the software EULA. Checking out the EULA for Garageband from the Apple legal site yields the following information-

    2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions. This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on
    a single Apple-labeled computer at a time. You may use the Apple and third party audio loop content (“Audio Content”),
    contained in or otherwise included with the Apple Software, on a royalty-free basis, to create your own original
    soundtracks for your video and audio projects. You may broadcast and/or distribute your own soundtracks that were
    created using the Audio Content, however, individual samples, sound sets, or audio loops may not be commercially or
    otherwise distributed on a standalone basis, nor may they be repackaged in whole or in part as audio samples, sound
    libraries, sound effects or music beds.

    To see the whole thing, check out the Garageband EULA here-
    http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/garagebandjam.pdf

    The Apple legal site here(with copies of all the EULAs)-
    http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/

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