Creative Commons music licenses, explained for content creators.

If you make videos, podcasts, games, or streams using music you found on Free Music Archive / ccMixter / Jamendo / SoundCloud, you need to understand the difference between CC0, CC BY, CC BY-SA, and CC BY-NC. Use the wrong one and your "free" track becomes a takedown notice, a Content ID claim, or a contract violation. This is the practical, no-legalese version of what each license actually means and how to comply correctly on every platform.

This is written from the perspective of content creators using CC-licensed music in their own work, not from the perspective of musicians choosing a license for their own releases. If you're the artist, swap to the Creative Commons license chooser. If you're using someone else's music, keep reading.

Why this matters more than people realise

The Creative Commons system was built on a deliberately modular set of conditions: you start with "all rights reserved," then strip away restrictions one at a time. Each restriction has a two-letter abbreviation. The license name is just a list of which restrictions are kept.

• BY = "give credit to the creator"
• SA = "share-alike: derivatives must use the same license"
• NC = "non-commercial use only"
• ND = "no derivatives: don't remix or edit"

So "CC BY-SA" means "give credit AND share-alike." "CC BY-NC-ND" means "give credit AND non-commercial AND no-derivatives." "CC0" means "no restrictions at all: public domain."

Once you internalise that, every CC license name decodes itself. The hard part is knowing which ones are safe for which use case.

The CC licenses, ranked from most to least permissive

"Track Name" by Artist Name
is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Source: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Artist/Album/Track

The three most common attribution mistakes

Mistake 1: Crediting just the artist, not the license

Writing "Music: Joe Smith" in your video description is not valid CC BY attribution. The license requires creator name + license name + source URL, at minimum. "Music: Joe Smith" alone fails the test. If the artist sees their work used without proper attribution, they can issue a takedown.

The correct minimum:

Music: "Track Title" by Joe Smith, CC BY 4.0
https://freemusicarchive.org/...

Mistake 2: Burying the credit somewhere the platform doesn't show it

On YouTube: put the credit in the video description, ideally near the top. Some platforms collapse descriptions after 3 lines: if your credit is below the fold, it still counts as accessible (per the CC license terms), but be aware that less-scrupulous viewers might not see it.

On podcasts: put credits in the show notes / episode description. Mentioning them aloud at the start or end is polite but not required.

On games: put credits in the in-game credits roll and in a CREDITS.txt or LICENSES.txt file shipped with the build. Doubled-up redundancy is the safe play.

On Substack / Medium / blog posts: in-line credit below the embed, or in a "credits" footer at the bottom.

Mistake 3: Modifying a CC BY-ND track

Any edit: fade, trim, loop, layer with another track, run through a filter: counts as a derivative. CC BY-ND prohibits derivatives. If you took a CC BY-ND track, faded it in over your intro, you're in violation.

Easiest fix: avoid CC BY-ND. everysong's catalogue doesn't include it. Most creator-focused CC music repositories don't either.

Per-platform attribution templates (copy-paste ready)

YouTube video description

--
🎵 Music
"Track Name" by Artist Name (CC BY 4.0)
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Artist/Album/Track
--

Podcast show notes

Intro/outro music: "Track Name" by Artist Name,
licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.
Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/Artist/Track

Indie game in-engine credits roll

MUSIC

"Level 1 Theme": Artist Name
  Licensed under CC BY 4.0
  https://www.jamendo.com/track/...

"Boss Combat": Other Artist
  Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
  https://freemusicarchive.org/...

"Menu Loop": Third Artist
  CC0 (Public Domain)

Twitch stream panel / description

Stream music is Creative Commons licensed.
Full credits at: yourchannel.com/music-credits

(Then keep the full list on a static page somewhere: Twitch panels have character limits, so a permalink to a credit page is the standard pattern.)

Embedded blog post / Substack / Medium

♫ "Track Name" by Artist Name
  is licensed under CC BY 4.0
  Source · License

Honest edge cases that matter

What if I can't reach the artist?

You don't need to. Creative Commons licenses are self-executing: the artist granted the permission in advance when they applied the license. Just follow the attribution requirements; you don't need explicit per-use approval.

What if the track says "CC BY 4.0" but the source page is offline?

Save a screenshot of the original license declaration when you first download the track. If the source page later goes 404, you still have proof you obtained the work under that license. The license is irrevocable once granted, so even if the artist later changes their mind, your already-licensed copy is still valid.

What if I modified the track (faded, trimmed, looped)?

If the track is CC BY or CC BY-SA, you're allowed to modify it: just indicate that you did so in your attribution. Add "(modified)" or "(excerpt)" or "(fade-in version)" after the track title. Example:

"Track Name (fade-out version)" by Artist Name (CC BY 4.0)

What about Content ID claims on CC tracks?

Occasionally a Content ID partner will mistakenly upload a CC-licensed track to their database, and your video gets a claim. Dispute it. You'll need: the source URL showing the license, the track title and artist, and a one-line explanation that the work is Creative Commons licensed and you're complying with the license terms. Disputes on legitimately CC-licensed material almost always win.

Are CC licenses valid in every country?

Effectively, yes. Creative Commons 4.0 (the most common version you'll see) is designed to be jurisdiction-portable and enforceable in all countries that recognise copyright (essentially every country except a few corner cases). Earlier versions (1.0, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0) had jurisdiction-specific "ports" but all later versions converged on 4.0 as the universal standard.

Why everysong's catalogue is filtered the way it is

Out of the six standard CC licenses (CC0, CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND), everysong's catalogue includes only the three that are commercial-safe and modification-friendly: CC0, CC BY, and CC BY-SA.

The exclusions:

• CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA, CC BY-NC-ND: excluded because most content creators eventually monetise (YouTube ads, Patreon, sponsored episodes, paid game sales). We'd rather you never accidentally violate a license than try to filter by "are you commercial yet?"
• CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND: excluded because any edit to a track (fade, trim, loop, mix) violates the No Derivatives clause, which makes them unusable for actual creative work.

Result: every match in the catalogue is one of CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA, and the license badge is shown next to every track. You can also enable a "strictest only" filter that hides CC BY-SA tracks if you want to avoid share-alike obligations entirely: useful for client work where share-alike contagion could be a concern.

The 60-second cheat sheet

If you remember nothing else, remember this

1. CC0 = use it like it's yours (credit optional but kind).
2. CC BY = use it freely, just credit the artist.
3. CC BY-SA = use it freely, credit the artist, and don't bundle into "no share-alike" client deliverables without thinking.
4. Anything with "NC" or "ND" in the name = skip for commercial work.
5. Save your credit format as a snippet: paste it everywhere instead of writing it fresh each time.

That's the entire CC music license system, in five lines. The rest is paperwork. If you want a catalogue where every track is already pre-filtered to those rules (and the audio-similarity search makes finding the right one fast), everysong does that for $5 once.