Pixabay has royalty free music you can use for free
pixabay.com
pixabay.com
Pixbay is verry waffly on what is and is not permitted[1], and in their "conclusion" they basically wash their hands of the risk, putting the onus back on the user:
Understand that Pixabay images can be used in many instances without asking permission from the image author. However, it is your responsibility, to make sure the depicted content (persons, logos, designs, property, etc.) is suitable for your use and does not infringe any rights.
Meanwhile, somewhere like Getty gives a clear warranty that using their Royalty-Free content will not infringe on rights[1]:
For licensed royalty-free content (excluding content marked “editorial” or “intended for editorial”), Getty Images warrants that your use of such content in accordance with this agreement and in the form delivered by Getty Images (that is, excluding any modifications, overlays or refocusing done by you) will not infringe on any trademark or other intellectual property right, and will not violate any right of privacy or right of publicity.
[1] https://pixabay.com/blog/posts/pixabay-license-what-is-allow... [2] https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/eula
Is Pinterest not a search engine for images?
Pixabay does offer a legally binding license to you, written here: https://pixabay.com/service/terms/#license
> Under the Pixabay License you are granted an irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive and royalty free right to use, download, copy, modify or adapt the Content for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Attribution of the photographer, videographer, musician or Pixabay is not required but is always appreciated.
(subject to exclusions, you should read in the license)
Of course, being a free stock library, Pixabay isn't able to offer specific warranties beyond the provided rights, like Getty's paid offering. The same way an open source project isn't going to come with support that you'd get from licensing an Oracle product.
I've seen some clutching-at-straws arguments in my time, but oof, that's a doozy ! Apples and Oranges.
Let's just say I would question the utility of an image "license" that is not able to provide an infringement warranty.
As for the "cost" of a Getty (or other) image license. Said cost of an image is far, far, FAR lower than being taken to court for rights infringement.
When it comes to Pixabay content, most do not feature trademarks, or identifiable persons. That makes the Getty warranties moot.
Furthermore, their warranties have caveats ("your use of such content in accordance with this agreement"). If you use a stock photo with a model in an obscene or pornographic way, that automatically voids the Getty license and the warranty, the same way it automatically voids the Pixabay license.
> As for the "cost" of a Getty (or other) image license. Said cost of an image is far, far, FAR lower than being taken to court for rights infringement.
Yes, however, rightsholders don't go straight to court filings unless you're maybe doing a Superbowl commercial or something. They'd usually send you a letter of demand for $xxx for a retroactive license.
If this does happen to anyone, please reach out to info@pixabay.com or copyright@canva.com depending on where you got the content from; it's very rare but we do have a process and legal team that helps with this. And I can tell you: paid stock libraries (including Getty) deal with these too, and resolve it in essentially the same way we do.
"However, it is your responsibility, to make sure the depicted content (persons, logos, designs, property, etc.) is suitable for your use and does not infringe any rights" (https://pixabay.com/blog/posts/pixabay-license-what-is-allow...)
What happens when the depicted content does infringe through no fault of the user who got the image from Pixabay?
"""
a. Sale or distribution of Content as digital Content or as digital wallpapers (such as on stock media websites or as NFTs);
b. Sale or distribution of Content e.g. as a posters, digital prints, music files or physical products, without adding any additional elements or otherwise adding value
c. Depiction of identifiable persons in an offensive, pornographic, obscene, immoral, defamatory or libelous way; or
d. Any suggestion that there is an endorsement of products and services by depicted persons, brands, vocalists and organisations, unless permission was granted.
"""
This puts is squarely in the 'non-libre' or 'non-open' side of things.
For example, this would be in violation of any GPL-like license. While software licenses don't necessarily apply to things like pictures, I would be hesitant to include any pictures from Pixabay in any libre software I was creating.
However, restrictions like c. and d. (among others) could come into play however the image is licensed. And, in fact, absent a model release form, any use of images of recognizable people for any sort of marketing or advertising use is suspect.
If the usage outlined is illegal, then there's no need to add it to a license agreement as the type of use is prevented by law.
If it's legal then there's always the possibility to prevent usage by claiming it violates the terms outlined.
Openverse https://wordpress.org/openverse/ (formerly CC Search)
NoCopyrightSounds https://ncs.io/
Dova-Syndrome https://dova-s.jp/EN/
Incompetech https://incompetech.com/
Music for use in videos:
https://creativecommons.org/about/program-areas/arts-culture...
Music communities:
https://creativecommons.org/about/program-areas/arts-culture...
If you're doing audio postprocessing, I suggest listening to this excellent podcast tutorial.
https://www.drabblecast.org/tag/relaunch-prelaunch/
It's the second to last episode: Inside Drabblecast Audio.
Have fun!
(I have no affiliation with the Drabblecast; it is one of my favorite fiction podcasts, and has great audio production quality.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_MacLeod [2] https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/
Finding quality libre or public domain art remains difficult. Here are a few resources that I've found:
Archive.org - https://archive.org/
FOSsil Bank Art(Libre) - http://fossilbank.wikidot.com/category:art-libre
Flickr British Library - https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/albums
Artnome - https://www.artnome.com/art-data
Comic Book Plus - https://comicbookplus.com/ (public domain comics)
And of course, Wikipedia has libre-licensed art. I'm a little embarrassed but PublicDomainPictures and PublicDomainVectors is also a go-to resource for me.
(Apparently there's a process to clear it: https://pixabay.com/blog/posts/how-to-clear-a-youtube-conten...)
(Disclosure: I work for Canva, the parent company of Pixabay).
2020 https://pixabay.com/blog/posts/announcing-pixabay-music-179/
There a number of other stock photo/video sites that began offering this kind of thing in the last 5 years also. Vimeo comes to mind.