Do you know the Free Music Archive project?
It’s an online repository dedicated to hosting free music. Its goal is to provide an archive of music with Creative Commons licenses, which can be downloaded freely and used in other derivative works.
The works published on FMA are reviewed and are quality works. Additionally, the page allows users who download these works to make donations to their composers.
History of FMA
This project emerged in 2009 from the hand of WFMU, KBOO, and KEXP, independent radio stations in the US. In 2016, the catalog exceeded 100,000 songs, but in 2018, the project’s closure was announced due to lack of funding.
The existing archives were transferred to TheInternetArchive. It’s a digital library that advocates for universal access to knowledge on the Internet, and hosts all types of files: web page copies, software, music, books…
In 2019, the FMA project was acquired by TribeofNoise, a social network for musicians who share their music. This network added FMA’s songs to its own free catalog, expanding the collection.
In May 2020, Tribe of Noise received the “Grant for the Web” award for developing new online business models based on open standards and for supporting access to free music.
Tribe of Noise PRO
Some songs published on Tribe of Noise are limited to the Non Commercial scope. This means they can be used freely as long as it’s not a paid project. To use these songs for commercial purposes, TribeOfNoise also maintains a store that allows artists to set a price for the use of their songs in commercial audiovisual projects.
