Music For Podcasts

I had a couple of questions at my ACRL Cyber Zed Shed session about where to find music that is OK to use in podcasts. And a couple of emails after the session. So I thought I would post the info here. This is by no means a complete list, but a good place to start.

The main music site I mentioned was the Creative Commons audio site. It has links to several online labels that release music under Creative Commons licenses that are safe for podcasting. I've used lots of stuff from the Magnatune label.

There's also another CC site called CC Mixter where people can upload songs, beats and remixes that are podsafe. It's mostly electronic and hip hop but there are other genres as well. People do some cool stuff with remixes there.

They also have a new CC search page that links to CC specific searches from Google etc. I haven't tried out yet, but it looks interesting.

The Creative Commons Podcasting Legal Guide is a good resource of copyright issues that relate to podcasting.

As long as the work has a CC license it should be fine to use in both audio and video podcasts. Just make sure to read the licenses for a particular work and follow the guidelines for attribution etc set out in the license. This FAQ gives info for people who want to use CC licensed content.

The Pod Safe Music Network is another good place to find audio content you can use in your podcasts.

There are many more sources for podsafe music out there but these are a good place to start.