Freesound Forums

First I would like to thank the wonderful people who began, maintain, and participate in this project! I came across this site when doing a search for free sounds for this project (I describe below). My original intent was just to find some sounds I could use temporarily, and then I assumed that later we would have to buy some, once we had decided what we needed. But this project is more than I could have hoped for.

I think I understand the license, and it seems that we are using the sounds from Freesound appropriately, but I would like to post how we're using the sounds here so that someone may comment if I'm off base:

Our nonprofit organization, PKIDs (www.pkids.org), is building a fun website to promote awareness of vaccinations among 18-24 yr olds. Our homepage is a crazy Flash-based set of animations with sound effects, which of course I've obtained almost entirely from Freesound. Some of the sounds have been shortened, but they remain true to their original purpose and are not misrepresented. Once we decide on what sounds we'll be using, the authors will be credited on a page devoted to people involved with the project. The main features of the website are a set of short crazy videos for people to watch and hopefully pass along to their friends, so we're hoping to generate interest in the site that way.

If there are any problems with that usage that anyone can see, please let me know! Thanks again for making sounds available and affordable.

hello!

sounds like a good plan. i think as long as the author and the sound is credited and not hidden then it should be fine.

good luck with your quest.

Unfortunately the current Sampling + license makes things tricky:

The actual legal code of CC License Sampling+
states :

"...if You choose to use the original Work as a whole, You must either use the Work as an insubstantial portion of Your Derivative Work(s) or transform it into something substantially different from the original Work. In the case of a musical Work and/or audio recording, the mere synchronization ("synching" of the Work with a moving image shall not be considered a transformation of the Work into something substantially different."

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/legalcode

The question is really whether or not your use of the samples can be considered an insubstantial portion of yor work(the site). Some people could argue that those samples are a substantial portion and that violates the license, others feel its insubstantial. Its a grey area.

I think a lot of people do intend to give people quite a free use of their sound on this site. To avoid that risk though your best bet would be to try to contact the authors of the sounds just to confirm they are ok with the use of their sounds in the way you describe. If they don't want them used in such a way I would avoid using those sounds.

Yeah, contact them, but i am sure everybody will feel ok with it

The community haves less gray areas than the license, on this particular subject.

All the best.

Thanks for the heads-up -- I think I will contact the sound authors when we have the site in a more finished state so they can review usages of the sounds before the site goes live.

thanks again!
PKIDs

I really think that the intention of that confusing clause is to prevent the making of for-profit music videos or such from sampling+ licensed songs. Always keep in mind that this license was written for commercial artists who wish to encourage filesharing and sampling/remixing of their songs, not for a sample library. It's still nice to ask the authors of course, but I think that the sounds would qualify as an "insubstantial portion" of the work.

Of course, I am not a lawyer, and it's nicer to ask anyway, so go ahead.