TLDR

• ❌ If footer says © all rights reserved = cannot be used freely.
  • Your upload could be systematically removed and/or copyrighted-claimed by the distributor on SoundCloud/YouTube due to the copyright's nature. I have no easy control over this.
• ✅ If footer says 🄯 some rights reserved = can be used, may have some limitations: click the Creative Commons link and read what you can and can't do.
  • You will need to credit me. How do I credit you? Quick example:

  • "[Song Title]" by [Artist] from the album '[Album Title]' licensed under [License Name]. Album Link: [Link]

• ✅ If footer says 🄯 no rights reserved = can be used freely, even commercially.
• ⚠ If footer says 🄯 **not licensed ** = can be used, but discouraged to avoid future problems. That's everything you need to know, more details below.

Checking the License

Many of my songs are licensed in a free to use license such as Creative Commons Attribution and its variants, but not them all. The first thing you want to check is what license is the song at, usually present at the end of the description in both Bandcamp and YouTube.

Footers and what they mean:

• © all rights reserved
  • Unfortunately, you can't use this work freely. Services such as SoundCloud and YouTube may try to take down your re-upload/usage. YouTube will detect the song if it has Content ID and your video will be claimed by the distributor of the track (not me).
• 🄯 some rights reserved [some link]
  • The work can be used as long as you comply with whatever license is attached for this song. Click on the link and see what you're free to do;
  • All of the licenses will require you to credit me as the creator of the track; we will get into crediting in a bit.
• 🄯 no rights reserved (CC0)
  • The work can be used for free with no additional requirements, it's essentially Public Domain and you're free to sample, re-use, re-post, do whatever you want, even commercially.
• 🄯 no license attributed yet or not licensed yet
  • The work have an unknown/dangling license. You may refrain using this work as a way to avoid uncertainty as the work may get copyrighted in the future.

Crediting

This is how I credit other creators whenever needed. The standard TASL model (Title, Author, Source, License) is used for crediting made by Creative Commons. You can use this as a reference.

Those can be attached to the description box of whatever platform you're uploading to, that could be Newgrounds, Bandcamp, YouTube, NicoVideo, Vimeo, SoundCloud, etc.

Examples of General Usage

Ordinary cases such as background music, introductions music, podcasts, snippets, etc.

• ✅ Good:

• Reads like:
  • Title: Loves Apple Market
  • Author: miwafoxl
  • Source: https://miwafoxl.bandcamp.com/album/love-apples-market
  • License: Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0

Background Music: "Loves Apple Market" by miwafoxl (Source: Loves Apple Market) licensed under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.

• ✅ Good:

• Reads like:
  • Title: Love is War, part of EP "Fireheart" (clearer)
  • Author: miwafoxl
  • Source: https://miwafoxl.bandcamp.com/album/fireheart
  • License: Creative Commons BY 4.0

"Love is War" by miwafoxl from the EP "Fireheart" licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. Album Link: Fireheart EP.

• ❌ Not good enough:

• Reads like:
  • Title: ?
  • Author: miwafoxl
  • Source: https://miwafoxl.bandcamp.com
  • License: ?

Song by miwafoxl: https://miwafoxl.bandcamp.com

• ❌ Bad:

• Reads like:
  • Title: ?
  • Author: ?
  • Source: ?
  • License: No information of the license provided

Creative Commons Song

For Producers: Examples of Derivation Usage

Derivation or remixing/reuse of song cases goes similarly with the same model, but emphasizing that your work is derivative of another.

• ✅ Good:

• Reads like:
  • Declaration: Sampled
  • Title: Loves Apple Market
  • Author: miwafoxl
  • Source: https://miwafoxl.bandcamp.com/album/love-apples-market
  • License: Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0

Contains samples from "Loves Apple Market" by miwafoxl, under CC-BY-SA 4.0 license. Source: https://miwafoxl.bandcamp.com/album/love-apples-market.

• ✅ Good:

• Reads like:
  • Declaration: Derivative
  • Title: Love is War, part of EP "Fireheart" (clearer)
  • Author: miwafoxl
  • Source: https://miwafoxl.bandcamp.com/album/fireheart
  • License: Creative Commons BY 4.0

Derivative work of "Love is War" by miwafoxl from the EP "Fireheart" (https://miwafoxl.bandcamp.com/album/fireheart) licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

• ❌ Bad:

• Reads like:
  • Declaration: No information in how the song is used
  • Title: ?
  • Author: miwafoxl
  • Source: ?
  • License: ?

Song by miwafoxl

• ❌ Not good enough:

• Reads like:
  • Declaration: Remix
  • Title: Love is War
  • Author: ?
  • Source: https://miwafoxl.bandcamp.com/album/fireheart
  • License: ?

Remix of "Love is War": https://miwafoxl.bandcamp.com/album/fireheart

For Producers: Using Copyrighted © Work

I strongly recommend you to contacting the original artist in case before using copyrighted work. However, there is good reason why this is very unrealistic for most people that are sampling existing work. In that case you can credit the same way as the good examples above.

This won't protect you in case your work happens to become more known and, inevitably, gets noticed by the big labels. Never sell music that relies on other copyrighted work in order to exist, this will get you into big (legal) trouble sooner or later. By crediting copyrighted work, you would help a lot people trying to find the original thing. It will also be honest and transparent with your listeners as you're clear that you haven't made everything in there.