Legal/royalty free MOD Samples?

[ModManiac12]

hi ! i am lookng for MOD/tracker samples which are royalty free, is there maybe a page or collection where you can find samples free to use? thanks a loT!

[Saga Musix]

Have a look at this topic: https://forum.openmpt.org/index.php?topic=174.0

I'd suggest to start on the last page because as you can see it has been running for over 15 years, so many links on the earlier pages are dead. Also go Help -> Web Resources in OpenMPT for more links.

Last but not least, you will also find a lot of stuff here: https://modarchive.org/forums/index.php?board=36.0

[ModManiac12]

Have a look at this topic: https://forum.openmpt.org/index.php?topic=174.0

I'd suggest to start on the last page because as you can see it has been running for over 15 years, so many links on the earlier pages are dead. Also go Help -> Web Resources in OpenMPT for more links.

Last but not least, you will also find a lot of stuff here: https://modarchive.org/forums/index.php?board=36.0

thx so much for the infos, i will check the pages

[Vojvodinosaurus]

What about samples from public domain mods on modarchive? Are all those samples public domain too?

[Saga Musix]

To be very frank, I think many people who claim that their music is completely royalty-free or public domain or whatever do not think about whether all parts of the module really are (they just think about the composition but not the sample). Many of those modules declared to be in the public domain use ST-01 samples for example, and those samples are taken from famous 80s synthesizers, among other sources. And of course this sample disk was sold alongside a commercial product (Ultimate SoundTracker), and while it has been long discontinued, most people using those samples never paid for that product.
Is it likely that anyone will get sued for using them? Again, no, it's not likely at all that this would ever happen. But if you ask for the legal status of those samples, it's simply impossible to give a clear answer. If being 100% certain that all material you use is 100% royalty-free and legally "clean" is of importance to you, you cannot use these sources. Most people don't go that far and are happy with living a legal grey area that probably noone ever got sued over, though.

More interesting answers on this topic are provided here, especially those answers by Ceekayed are worth reading: https://modarchive.org/forums/index.php?topic=4602.0

[stgiga]

I know that this is a VERY late post, but when I was making my JummBox SoundFont (available for free here or here) I was verifying the licenses of what I was using to make it. The end result is under CC-BY-SA4, which is GPL3-compatible. CC-BY-SA4 and the GPL do not inherently ban commercial use. There are around 185 presets in it, and a drumkit with 128 sounds. The bank is chiptune and deliberately compatible with OpenMPT. Researching the licenses does take some time, but it was worth it in the end. I've also researched the licenses for the components that make up two of my best JavaScript apps. Both ended up being libre despite being both a witch's brew of glued-together code. The compressor (BWTC32Key) ended up being GPL2, and my 3081 byte demoscene-inspired browser game (available here) turned out to have been made entirely from Public Domain code. Keep in mind that the research took place in the code cases YEARS after I had written them, but it turned out to have been correct. My tip for people looking for royalty-free content is to do research, and hunt for stuff that is FOSS.

[allenwrench]

My apologies, there are some legally royalty free tracker music from a game called Python Solitare Fan Club Edition (PySol FC). The tracker music is under the GNU GPL which is free but with a catch.

https://github.com/shlomif/PySolFC

I don't know if the samples are free-er than the GPL but as a whole the work is under a free but with a catch license.

I know that this is a VERY late post, but when I was making my JummBox SoundFont (available for free here or here) I was verifying the licenses of what I was using to make it. The end result is under CC-BY-SA4, which is GPL3-compatible. CC-BY-SA4 and the GPL do not inherently ban commercial use. There are around 185 presets in it, and a drumkit with 128 sounds. The bank is chiptune and deliberately compatible with OpenMPT. Researching the licenses does take some time, but it was worth it in the end. I've also researched the licenses for the components that make up two of my best JavaScript apps. Both ended up being libre despite being both a witch's brew of glued-together code. The compressor (BWTC32Key) ended up being GPL2, and my 3081 byte demoscene-inspired browser game (available here) turned out to have been made entirely from Public Domain code. Keep in mind that the research took place in the code cases YEARS after I had written them, but it turned out to have been correct. My tip for people looking for royalty-free content is to do research, and hunt for stuff that is FOSS.

[Vad1m_1719]

My apologies, there are some legally royalty free tracker music from a game called Python Solitare Fan Club Edition (PySol FC). The tracker music is under the GNU GPL which is free but with a catch.

https://github.com/shlomif/PySolFC

I don't know if the samples are free-er than the GPL but as a whole the work is under a free but with a catch license.

I know that this is a VERY late post, but when I was making my JummBox SoundFont (available for free here or here) I was verifying the licenses of what I was using to make it. The end result is under CC-BY-SA4, which is GPL3-compatible. CC-BY-SA4 and the GPL do not inherently ban commercial use. There are around 185 presets in it, and a drumkit with 128 sounds. The bank is chiptune and deliberately compatible with OpenMPT. Researching the licenses does take some time, but it was worth it in the end. I've also researched the licenses for the components that make up two of my best JavaScript apps. Both ended up being libre despite being both a witch's brew of glued-together code. The compressor (BWTC32Key) ended up being GPL2, and my 3081 byte demoscene-inspired browser game (available here) turned out to have been made entirely from Public Domain code. Keep in mind that the research took place in the code cases YEARS after I had written them, but it turned out to have been correct. My tip for people looking for royalty-free content is to do research, and hunt for stuff that is FOSS.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/982276947977597018/1081797708114837564/Pysol_OST.zip All tracker music composed by Nightbeat. [I have trusted my data]

[Saga Musix]

Those tracks by Nightbeat are a prime example of what I was talking about in my previous post. Someone asked if they can include the music in their GPL-licensed project and if the music can use the same license, the author agreed, but nobody actually cared about checking the actual copyright on the samples used by the music. Nightbeat didn't create those samples by himself. They probably come from a variety of synthesizers, sample CDs and other sources. They are in the legal grey area where probably nobody will ever care about the actual copyright status of the samples, but if the goal is to find samples known to be 100% royalty-free - these modules won't cut it.

[allenwrench]

Those tracks by Nightbeat are a prime example of what I was talking about in my previous post. Someone asked if they can include the music in their GPL-licensed project and if the music can use the same license, the author agreed, but nobody actually cared about checking the actual copyright on the samples used by the music. Nightbeat didn't create those samples by himself. They probably come from a variety of synthesizers, sample CDs and other sources. They are in the legal grey area where probably nobody will ever care about the actual copyright status of the samples, but if the goal is to find samples known to be 100% royalty-free - these modules won't cut it.

The samples reminds me of those used by Alexander Brandon for unreal 1998 game so if he got the samples from there then it's possible it's ok to use. De minini principle. Listen to sub. Mod by night beat it sounds like unreal but I assume the samples came from a royalty free library, I remember seeing a cd with a license on the box stating if you own this box of cds you have a license

[Saga Musix]

Licenses are not transitive. Just because one person has a license to use a sample doesn't give you the same license if you rip the sample from a module.

And again: It's a legal grey area. If someone tried really really hard, they could probably try to make a legal case out of it, but of course it's extremely unlikely to happen (although Roland and Spectrasonics are getting into legal battles with sample library developers using presets from their classic synths and drum machines, or so I've heard).
Usually the licenses for synthesizer presets or sample CDs give you the permission to use these instruments in the context of a composition, but not in isolation. When you load such a sample into a module you are technically distributing that sample in isolation, for free, which you usually are not given a license for. Just because Epic Megagames released a commercial product in 1998 doesn't mean that it's 100% clean with regards to sample copyrights. Nobody cared especially back then. And even if there was some commercial sample library that gave you the permission to just copy their samples verbatim in the way modules do, that still wouldn't solve the case of synthesizer presets, of which plenty are used in this music (just recently I identified a dozen or so Korg Triton presets used in the Deus Ex soundtrack for instance).
Is it going to be a legal problem? 99% likely not, as said. Nobody is going to be sued for spreading free samples of a handful of sampled presets. But if someone asks for 100% royalty-free samples, telling them that samples from Unreal (or any other module music) are fine to use is misleading at best.

[allenwrench]

Licenses are not transitive. Just because one person has a license to use a sample doesn't give you the same license if you rip the sample from a module.

And again: It's a legal grey area. If someone tried really really hard, they could probably try to make a legal case out of it, but of course it's extremely unlikely to happen (although Roland and Spectrasonics are getting into legal battles with sample library developers using presets from their classic synths and drum machines, or so I've heard).
Usually the licenses for synthesizer presets or sample CDs give you the permission to use these instruments in the context of a composition, but not in isolation. When you load such a sample into a module you are technically distributing that sample in isolation, for free, which you usually are not given a license for. Just because Epic Megagames released a commercial product in 1998 doesn't mean that it's 100% clean with regards to sample copyrights. Nobody cared especially back then. And even if there was some commercial sample library that gave you the permission to just copy their samples verbatim in the way modules do, that still wouldn't solve the case of synthesizer presets, of which plenty are used in this music (just recently I identified a dozen or so Korg Triton presets used in the Deus Ex soundtrack for instance).
Is it going to be a legal problem? 99% likely not, as said. Nobody is going to be sued for spreading free samples of a handful of sampled presets. But if someone asks for 100% royalty-free samples, telling them that samples from Unreal (or any other module music) are fine to use is misleading at best.

Yea but the burden is on the person who released said work under the GPL that he or she attests that the work is theirs or they have a license to release said work under the GPL for others to use, similar to say Public Domain Dedication Licenses.

If the person didn't have the rights to release said work under the GPL or have a license to either re-license or sub-license a work under the GPL well that's different. It would have to be argued in court then but I am on the honor system that if a work is released legally under the GPL it is released for all to use under the condition that you cannot close it off, for example, selling the product itself. The GPL makes it inconvenient to sell the product since you have to ship the source code to it as well as any changes.

It makes it a community-supported project where the money is made on I guess supporting it and servicing it ie maintaining and trying to add new features.

I do this all the time, releasing free cultural works under CC-BY-SA writing stuff that I hope will be used in libre projects. But most of the time I don't see any activity and therefore I simply give up my exclusive copyrights by putting them into the public domain by way of the CC0 1.0 license. It is a shame such licenses are considered toxic as a whole.

[newbie]

You might be safe to use the samples from the Freepats project https://freepats.zenvoid.org/, as well as the free instrument samples at Versilian Studios https://vis.versilstudios.com/products.html#freeware