Were do you guys get legal songs for movie contest

Just wondering if anyone knows were you get songs for contest? Copy rights and all that fun stuff?

I would think it would be something you would have to create. Your own music. I know the sims2 thier contests they provide music you can use to bad they didn't for the contest here. Maybe they can think on that for it if they have one next year.

You could look for music that has the Creative Commons license type of Attribute-sharealike or public domain works.

http://www.opsound.org/ has music with speciifically those types and a page that explains the difference and things like how you can use them in a derivative work like a film or video.

Some of the creative commons licenses will allow you to use audio in videos, except for advertising, so you have to be careful, since for the contest, you are basically creating an ad. With the share alike license, you shouldn't have an issue, since we can apply any type of copyright we want. Unless the contest says that you have to give all rights to LL, then that would violate the share alike agreement. I didn't enter this one, so I haven't read the rules.

Maybe Torley would allow the use of her music. Technically, it has a non-commercial share-alike copyright, but she just might let it slide for one of us

Speaking of music when can you use it legally I have been wondering that since for fun I have been making little videos with music. I mean the words and the song can give you insperation. And its fun to do but I would hate to find out I was breaking the law. I know it is done all the time in some other game instances for fun...see above. Is it ok if its just for fun? Its something i have been wondering. I mean its done all the time sims2 or sims99 etc but you never know so thought i would ask?

http://archive.org

The Internet Archive is a great place to look for soundtrack material, stock footage, and more.

Torley even has an archive of MP3s there.

That's where Moebius and I got the MP3s to use as score for our movie.

Check out CCMixter.org for lots of Creative Commons licensed tracks. Some are even licensed for commercial use.

Basically Melonie, unless a song, video, published work, anything that can be copyrighted, is specifically in the public domain or has a Creative Common Liscense (with certain restrictions) you CANNOT use it legally without permission.

For music, like radio broadcasts (including live DJ broadcast on the internet), use in film, comercials, an art show, whatever... you usually purchase a "performance" license from a royalty administration entity like ASCAP or BMI.

For film, most of the agencies who deal in performance license are pretty pricy as well as not wanting to deal with "on-line" distribution methods because of the difficulties of protecting the copyrighted material. We've even talked to some of the major film studio licensing agents and they are not at all keen on working with us in SL.

You can always talk to indie musicians in your local area and arrange performance permissions of their material (with proper credit of course!) - it helps boost their audience as well as being a source of music for your projects.

So really all the movie being made with music at various site that have music in them like any of todays hits are illegal? I dont know theres so many doing it. Like on the sims2 site 11,000 plus movie made in thier movie thread and most music videos with todays music. Sims99 site thousands more made. So *shrug* I dont know.

I cannot say Melonie. I only know the copyright laws and how one is supposed to secure permission to use another's work as an adjunct to their own work. Whether those others have or have not done that is their business. Speaking personally, I prefer to follow the copyright laws. It's kind of like speeding for me... yeah, everyone does it... they fly past me left and right... but if I did it... there'd be a cop up my butt in no time! And I have far too many things I want to do than deal with the legal system (including possible jail time!) and pay large fines!

Here's an idea: Microsoft had a product a few years ago, called the "Microsoft Music Producer", which was part of their pre-dotNet internet development suite.. The moniker they gave the package eludes me right now... Maybe someone else in the thread remembers this package.. Anyway, MS Music Producer was a very neat program to generate music for movies, etc.. without any worries about copyright.. The program created music of just about any genre of music, and output it in MIDI format, which could be changed into WAV files with other third-party tools.. I went looking thru my pile of CD's to see if I could find the disk, but couldn't find it right now... I've searched the MS product list/knowledgebase, and it appears they've not updated the program.. It's a shame, because it was/is a very cool utility, and works fine under XP....


Tas

I still have that Microsoft Music Producer program somewhere, but can't seem to find it right now.

If you download the MS PhotoStory 3 program, it has the same program embedded in it and will create a midi soundtrack based on the type you want and the length of the "story." You can get it to make you a soundtrack by doing the following:

Create a new project
import any one image - continue
right click that image and select edit -> duration
set the duration to the length you want the soundtrack for your movie
continue until you get to the music selection screen, select "create music," then pick/preview the style settings. It's really cheesy sounding, but sometimes you need that kind of thing. Once you find something you can live with, finish the movie and save the wmv file.

I used the VLC player from videolan.org to open the wmv and save just the audio as an mp3. Just import that into your video program.

You can listen to the soundtrack I made for one of my little movies here:

http://www.parrotislandpools.com/audiotest.mp3

An interesting thread this.

Hello all, Devils Advocate here - there is another angle on this.

A lot of what is being said is very typical of an attitude I see in industry, ie. a lot of people are happy to spend an age on making the visual side to a film, but when it come down to the soundtrack, they want to either use an existing track or look for other shortcuts. Thanksfully, people dont tend to say "I got some music here, where can I get a free video to slap on it?" (-Well not very often anyway).

-So, why not continue to be creative and put as much effort in as you will need to on the visuals? - you don't need to always use a 'pop' song, there's so much else that could be done, a lot of the software you need is out there, a lot of it is free, like for example 'Audacity' (PC / MAC, all you need is a Mic). Also, if you feel that maybe this task is beyond you, perhaps you could collaborate with someone else who can? This way we get work that is copyright free and probably is much more inventive and original... I like the suggestion to use an automated approach above to generate material, but dont just use what gets spat out, consider it and edit it.

Just a thought...

A common quote: "The soundtrack makes 60% of a movie...."