Slashdot Mirror
Freesound Reaches 10,000 Files
Bram writes ""The Freesound Project aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, -not songs-... released under the Creative Commons Sampling+ License. The Freesound Project provides new and interesting ways of accessing and browsing these samples."
In less that 7 months we've grown to 30,000 users and today we finally reached the first goal of the project: we've collected over 10,000 samples, added by various people around the globe: only a slashdotting would be a suiting birthday cake. If you do visit Freesound, don't forget to have a look at the Geotagged Samples as they are well worth it."
Not quite the same as samples, but Winamp creator Justin Frankel made Ninjam which allows musicians to participate in a near real time jam session over the net. The Jam Farm on ninjam has plenty of tracks all under the creative commons license.
But I know I'll often hear from people who just want to find a particular sound, whether it's for music, presentations, or whatever. Not just cheesy stuff, either, but actually worthwhile purposes. It's great to see that there's a group out there trying to provide a worthwhile sound catalog for everyone. After all, it's not like everyone has access to foley experts!
Hi, I'm working on a similar site, well not really but I never thought about posting it here. I'm very new at PHP and I need help with it. The site is here. If anyone can help out, please let me know. The basic idea is to allow a user to upload their MP3 library, and then listen to it from any wired device.
Wouldn't it be a good idea to cooperate with Wikimedia Commons, a "repository of free content images, sound and other multimedia files"? The goals seem to overlap quite a lot...?
As a developer of audio for free/open source games, I totally go to freesound first.
Doesn't freesound's license prohibit use of samples in commercially distributed computer programs, including commercially distributed Free games? See my other comment.
I am pretty sure that legal compatibility isn't an issue. Since you are only packaging the sounds with the software, and not merging them into the source of the application, they are considered separate works distributed together, and not a single derivative work. While the files do add to the functionality of the program, they are really no different from config files or scripts that modify the behavior of the program. As long as the modification is done outside the source code, then it isn't considered a derivative work. The GPL does not prevent you from bundling works. It is completely legal.
However, the non-commercial use clause is annoying and could cause practical difficulties for open source projects. The GPL expressly allows for the software for commercial purposes, how ever the CC Sampling Plus license doesn't. Therefore, a person who chose to use the package for commercial purposes couldn't use the sound files. It would be the responsibility of the project to inform their users that different parts of the project are under different licenses, and the responsibility of the users to follow them. This would be a major pain and would not be in the spirit of Free Software (similar to all the icon-set licensing arguments that have come up lately). I would avoid using files under this license in Free Software projects for that reason.
It seems to me that the license under which these sounds are released could use some work - perhaps the creators should be given a choice in how their sounds are licensed? For example, I do a lot of sound design for community theater, where crediting 10-15 different online entities in the program is not always looked on with favor. I would be happy, personally, to release the sound effects that I have created under a license not requiring attribution (at least in some circumstances).
As the author of this comment mentions, the current (only) choice for a license could get in the way of including these sounds in free software projects as well. Maybe an option that allows more freedom in using the effects in commercial works would help alleviate this? Then the artists could choose for themselves how they wanted their work to be licensed.
What they should do, is team up with Google. Ask them to allow sound files in Google Base, then upload all of their sounds there. This will get them a free, (almost-)non-slashdottable, mirror.