# Uncopyrighted music. Where can I find it?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uncopyrighted-music-where-can-i-find-it/79171
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 31, 2001, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uncopyrighted-music-where-can-i-find-it/79171 "2001-08-31T18:32:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2001, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uncopyrighted-music-where-can-i-find-it/79171/1 "2001-08-31T18:32:17Z")
I’m looking for some music (instrumental) that is uncopyrighted that I can use as back ground music for an amature video I’m making. ( :rolleyes: sigh. No, I am not making a porn.) I’ve been looking on the web but haven’t yet found what I’m looking for. A little help please.
[Edited by bibliophage on 08-31-2001 at 01:37 PM]
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### Author:  [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2001, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uncopyrighted-music-where-can-i-find-it/79171/2 "2001-08-31T18:51:49Z")
Have you tried the search term “public domain”? That should turn up something, although I would imagine it will be hard to find recorded PD music, since the recording itself confers copyright automatically.
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### Author:  [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2001, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uncopyrighted-music-where-can-i-find-it/79171/3 "2001-08-31T18:53:44Z")
Or try “production music.” There are all sorts of companies that sell music made specifically for use in films and TV. They have a bit of cheesy wonderfulness to them.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2001, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uncopyrighted-music-where-can-i-find-it/79171/4 "2001-08-31T19:41:09Z")
You can buy royalty-free music from various sources, like
[http://www.royaltyfree.com/](http://www.royaltyfree.com/)
[http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/](http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/)
Any song written prior to 1924 is in the public domain. You can record it freely (but you need to play it yourself – a recording by someone else can be copyrighted).
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### Author:  [@jonfromdenver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jonfromdenver)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2001, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uncopyrighted-music-where-can-i-find-it/79171/5 "2001-08-31T19:59:37Z")
what kind of music do you need and what kind of film is this?
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### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2001, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uncopyrighted-music-where-can-i-find-it/79171/6 "2001-08-31T20:38:08Z")
Thanks guys. I’ve already found a couple of good web sties. Before I was just limiting my search to “uncopyrighted music” which is why I wasn’t coming up with much.
**Johnfromdenver** , I have 2 videos I’m making, one is an instuctional that I’m making for my employer, the other is a video that I’m making of local gardens that I want to get shown on public access. I know that the cable public access people have all sorts of music I can use, but I want to produce this by myself. I’ve dealt with a few of the geeks there in the past, and they wanted to stick their fingers into what I was doing.
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### Author:  [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2010, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uncopyrighted-music-where-can-i-find-it/79171/7 "2010-03-19T22:20:28Z")
My favorite place to look for royalty free music is [AudioMicro](http://www.audiomicro.com/), which lets you search by length of music, genre, and style. For example, I was searching for music to accompany a book trailer and needed a piece to be at least a minute and a half long, with an action/mystery/supernatural vibe. So I searched for keywords such as drama, mystery, suspense, danger, pursuit, chase, mystical, magic, etc. Came up with some terrific material that was very reasonably priced, too.
For example, you might look up pastoral, nature, peaceful, etc. – whatever ‘vibe’ you want your video to have.
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### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2010, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uncopyrighted-music-where-can-i-find-it/79171/8 "2010-03-19T22:55:10Z")
The [Creative Commons](http://creativecommons.org/) people have a media search tool, and many items are available there under various licenses that allow you to reuse without cost. You can aslo search for media with specific licensing on Google: go to the [Advances Search](http://www.google.ca/advanced_search?hl=en) page, expand the “Date, usage rights, numeric range, and more” item, then select your desired usage right.
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### Author:  [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2010, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uncopyrighted-music-where-can-i-find-it/79171/9 "2010-03-19T23:14:11Z")
[Internet Archive](http://www.archive.org/details/audio_music) has some.
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### Author:  [@from\_a\_to\_z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/from_a_to_z)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2010, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uncopyrighted-music-where-can-i-find-it/79171/10 "2010-03-19T23:27:54Z")
Also the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at UCSB ([web page](http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/index.php)).
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2010, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uncopyrighted-music-where-can-i-find-it/79171/11 "2010-03-19T23:41:16Z")
This Zombie thread was posted to by a spammer today. His post disappeared.
Closing this one.
**samclem** Moderator, General Questions