Choose a License | Creative Commons

About the Creative Commons Music Sharing License

The Creative Commons music license helps you:

Mark It Legal: Mark your music with the CC logo so fans know that you own your copyright, but give permission to download, file-share, copy, and webcast — but not to sell, alter, or make any other commercial uses. Here's an example of how it would look on a band's web page and here's a short comic describing how fans might legally use your music.
Promote It: Register your music at Common Content so people can contact you to purchase commercial rights to the composition or sound recording. Or, have it hosted for free at the Internet Archive.
Make It Searchable: Make your music searchable within the Creative Commons audio search engine.

Note: You must own or be authorized to license both the composition, (c), and the sound recording, (p), of the song to mark it under the Music Sharing License. The Music Sharing License uses the identical terms as the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivativeWorks license.

Using the Creative Commons Music Sharing License

1. Mark it Legal: Put the logo below on your web page and let your fans know they can legally download, file-share, and trade your music but not sell, or make any commercial use out of it. They must also give you attribution when using your music, and cannot make remixes without permission. When a fan clicks on the logo, they will see this notice:

This music free to share under a Creative Commons Music Sharing License.

Paste the following code on your site where your music can be downloaded.

<a rel="license" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20060420030850/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed-music"><img alt="Creative Commons License" border="0" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20060420030850im_/http://creativecommons.org/images/public/music.gif"/></a><br/>
This music free to share under a <a rel="license" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20060420030850/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed-music">Creative
Commons Music Sharing License</a>.

<!--

<rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/"
    xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
    xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
<Work rdf:about="">
   <dc:type rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Sound" />
   <license rdf:resource="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/"
/>
</Work>

</rdf:RDF>

-->

2. Promote it: Register the composition and sound recording of your music at Common Content so that people may contact you if they want to acquire commercial rights to your music. You may also host your music for free at the Internet Archive.

3. Make it Searchable: If you've copied the code correctly, your song should already be searchable in the CC Audio Search Engine. You can also inform file-sharing applications by following our MP3 embedding guidelines.