Where to find public domain music?

September 3, 2006 11:04 AM

I"m starting a sci fi themed podcast and I need some music for the show. I have searched for some public domain sci fi music but havent found anything. Anybody know of a good place were i can find public domian sci fi theme music?
posted by mcraul to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

I wonder if you could get permission from William Shatner or Leanard Nimoy to use a sample of one of their musical epics. That would be way cool.
posted by veedubya at 11:31 AM on September 3, 2006

A little searching yielded this informative blog entry on the subject of "podsafe music," much of which is CC-licensed, not public domain.

There's a lot there, and admittedly it doesn't narrow down your search a whole lot, but it does give you something to play with.
posted by adamrice at 11:44 AM on September 3, 2006

The Internet Archive has a lot of public domain music (though the site seems to be quite slow at the moment).

Not public domain, but perhaps useful, is music that's been released under a Creative Commons license. On the Creative Commons "content curators" page, there is a long list of repositories of content that can be free reused (albeit generally requiring attribution) and you can search for CC-licensed content.
posted by camcgee at 11:46 AM on September 3, 2006

Response by poster: See the reason I was looking for public domain music is that I was wanting to go for that spooky/wierd 50's sounding theme music so common in movies from that era. I think the internet archives will probably be my best bet but i'll take anymore suggestions.
posted by mcraul at 1:01 PM on September 3, 2006

You can get a bunch of creative-commons licensed music at jamendo, though I don't see "scifi" as one of their tags.
posted by santacruz at 2:21 PM on September 3, 2006

You might have better luck looking for CC/public domain music that uses the theremin as an instrument. Not to pigeonhole the device, but it's what makes that spooky sound so common to 50s sci-fi music.
posted by chrominance at 4:00 PM on September 3, 2006

It's my understanding that if you use samples that are 30 seconds or less, you're in the clear, especially for a non-commercial application like a free podcast. Anything more than that, and it's a problem. As far as creepy music that would be perfect for this kind of show, I've always been partial to the theme music from "One Step Beyond".
posted by dbiedny at 5:30 PM on September 3, 2006

The 30-second thing is completely imaginary, and obviously, if you're using a copyrighted song as the theme or otherwise identifying introduction to your podcast, you're asking for trouble. Not that I can think of many podcasts that got busted for messing with commercial music, but I'd just steer clear.

For my "LOST" podcast, I just mixed together all the sample loops that came with GarageBand that had "sci-fi" or "eerie" in the title, and it came out pretty good.

Otherwise, you can look at a huge library like Magnatune and browse around in the ambient or other obscure categories to find something that catches your fancy. In fact, I'd wager you'll definitely find something there you'd be able to adopt as your theme, and with appropriate credit and linky goodness, you'd at worst be in the clear and at best help out the artist as well.
posted by pzarquon at 11:10 PM on September 3, 2006