Using creative commons sounds and music?

newmodels

I want to be able to add music and sound to my MMO project. Except I cannot compose. Also my sounds always get critics.

I thought about using creative commons music and sounds. My MMO project is opensource, so it seems this would be a good fit. How can I be certain the sound or music really is creative commons?

What do you think about using public domain or creative commons for your game projects?

TwistedTwigleg

@newmodels said: I thought about using creative commons music and sounds. My MMO project is opensource, so it seems this would be a good fit. How can I be certain the sound or music really is creative commons?

Well, if the place are you downloading the sounds/music from is not shady and says the files are licensed under Creative Commons, then it’s “probably” actually licensed under the CC license it says it is and is usable. Ultimately, there is a bit of trust involved, but on a whole its probably okay to assume that the place offering the sounds/music is telling the truth.

Since most Creative Commons licenses require attribution anyway, I would just recommend making a log of any audio assets used and where you got them from. Then you can use this in your credits for the audio assets and if there is any questions around the Creative Commons, you can refer back to that link.

Worse case, the sounds/music wasn’t CC but the website said it was. Then you may get a notice or DMCA, in which case you can replace the sound, apologize and point them to the website that is incorrectly licensing their asset, and move on. That said, I am not a lawyer and so I would suggest you talk to a legal professional if you get CC issues.

What do you think about using public domain or creative commons for your game projects?

I think its fine. I’ve done it many times in my own projects and some of the commercial projects I work on use assets under public domain or Creative Commons. The key is just making sure you follow all of the correct legal procedures and requirements like giving attribution, etc.

newmodels

That will be route I will try and take. Certaily cannot produce my own music and sounds. I can make sounds, but they don't sound good enough.

DaveTheCoder

The FPS tutorial in the official docs avoids including sound files "for legal reasons", although the ones it suggests using have a permissive license that allows any use without attribution. https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/3d/fps_tutorial/part_three.html#adding-sounds https://gamesounds.xyz/Sonniss.com%20-%20GDC%202017%20-%20Game%20Audio%20Bundle/Licensing.pdf

Is this a precaution to cover the potential situation where the files are discovered to be misappropriated?

TwistedTwigleg

@DaveTheCoder said: The FPS tutorial in the official docs avoids including sound files "for legal reasons", although the ones it suggests using have a permissive license that allows any use without attribution. https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/3d/fps_tutorial/part_three.html#adding-sounds https://gamesounds.xyz/Sonniss.com%20-%20GDC%202017%20-%20Game%20Audio%20Bundle/Licensing.pdf

Is this a precaution to cover the potential situation where the files are discovered to be misappropriated?

Kinda. I was new to writing tutorials and didn’t know where tutorial project downloads stood in terms of licensing. When I wrote the tutorial originally, I had only sorta started to figure out how to wade through the legal stuff and where to find it. I figured it was better to be safe than sorry since the tutorial was going on the official Godot documentation, so I left it out.

If I was rewriting the tutorial now, I would just include the assets with proper attribution.

DaveTheCoder

You wrote that tutorial? I just finished it.

Thanks for writing it. I found it extremely helpful. :)

One question about Ruins_Level.tscn and Space_Level.tscn. If I run those, the Player starts falling and the target objects quickly rise out of view. Is that a detail left for the tutorial reader to deal with by tweaking stuff? (If I'm getting too far off the original topic, let me know, and I'll post the question in a new thread.)

TwistedTwigleg

@DaveTheCoder said: You wrote that tutorial? I just finished it.

Thanks for writing it. I found it extremely helpful. :)

Yup, and you are welcome! I’m glad it’s useful :)

One question about Ruins_Level.tscn and Space_Level.tscn. If I run those, the Player starts falling and the target objects quickly rise out of view. Is that a detail left for the tutorial reader to deal with by tweaking stuff? (If I'm getting too far off the original topic, let me know, and I'll post the question in a new thread.)

If I recall correctly, you will need to reassign the GridMap libraries for each of the GridMap nodes in the inspector. Something changed with GridMaps since Godot 3.0 and that caused the GridMap nodes to lose their reference to the library of GridMap tiles, which makes 98% of the level missing! Reassigning the GridMap libraries should be all that is required and once assigned the level should function like expected.

I believe the finished project on the GitHub repository has the fix already implemented. There was a PR I made to fix this, but it was not merged because the decision was made to remove the tutorial as part of the Godot 4.0 documentation audit, as it was “out of date”, so the version on the documentation has this known GridMap issue.

Anyway, I’m getting a tad off topic now! If you have further questions about the FPS tutorial, please make a new topic and we can continue the discussion there :+1:

raincoat

I am using these web sites for sounds and musics:

https://freemusicarchive.org https://freesound.org https://www.looperman.com/

And these works are mostly free to use and under the CC Licence. Only need put the owner's name into the game credits.

And I am also making my own music with using Ardour also LMMS and open source Linux plug-ins for musics and soundscapes. And Audacity for editing the sounds too. These are fully free and open source and very useful places for sound, foley and music.

So what I think is Creative Common is a great choice for work flow.

DaveTheCoder

@TwistedTwigleg said: Anyway, I’m getting a tad off topic now! If you have further questions about the FPS tutorial, please make a new topic and we can continue the discussion there :+1:

Continued in new topic: https://godotforums.org/discussion/25035/fps-tutorial