Copyright Free Classical Music: Your Guide to the Best Options

Looking for some copyright-free classical music to use in your next project? Look no further! In this blog post, we’ll share some of the best options for finding high-quality, royalty-free classical music.

Introduction

classical music is a genre of music that is widely appreciated by music lovers all over the world. Unfortunately, finding copyright free options can be difficult. There are a few ways to find copyright free classical music, however, and this guide will explore some of the best options available.

Creative Commons Licenses

If you’re looking for copyright free classical music, your best bet is to look for music that is released under a Creative Commons license. These licenses allow for the free use of the music, as long as the artist is credited. You can find a lot of great classical music under Creative Commons licenses, so let’s take a look at some of the best options.

What is a Creative Commons License?

A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work. A CC license is used when an author wants to give people the right to share, use, and build upon a work that they have created.

There are several types of CC licenses. The licenses differ by several combinations of the following:

-Attribution: Requiring that others who use your work must give you credit.
-Noncommercial: Allowing only noncommercial uses of your work.
-Share Alike: Requiring that others who use your work must distribute their derivative works under the same or a similar license.

How do Creative Commons Licenses work?

Creative Commons licenses provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators. CC licenses grant creators a number of standard GPL-like rights to their works including the right to distribute, remix, and build upon their work for non-commercial purposes. In addition, Creative Commons licenses allow creators to tailor the terms of their work to best suit their needs while ensuring that recipients of their work are able to enjoy the same freedoms that they were granted.

There are four types of Creative Commons licenses:

Attribution (CC BY)
This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA)
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.

Attribution-NoDerivs (CC BY-ND)
This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial themselves they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.”

The Best Copyright Free Classical Music Websites

If you’re looking for copyright free classical music, you’re in luck. There are many great websites that offer classical music without the hassle of worrying about copyright infringement. In this guide, we’ll take a look at the best websites for copyright free classical music.

IMSLP

IMSLP, the International Music Score Library Project, is a wonderful resource for public domain classical music. All of the music on IMSLP is free to download and print, and you can also listen to it online.

One downside of IMSLP is that it can be difficult to find what you’re looking for, since the site isn’t organized in a very user-friendly way. However, once you get familiar with how the site works, it’s easy to find scores for specific composers or pieces of music.

Another downside of IMSLP is that not all of the scores are of the same quality. Some are professional quality editions, while others are amateur transcriptions. However, even the amateur transcriptions can be useful if you’re just looking for a simple version of a piece of music to play.

Overall, IMSLP is an excellent resource for classical music lovers who are looking for free sheet music. If you’re willing to spend some time learning how to use the site, you’ll be able to find almost any piece of classical music that you’re looking for.

Musopen

Musopen is a site dedicated to providing copyright free classical music. You can browse by composer, performer, instrument, period, or form. The site also offers a selection of public domain sheet music.

Musopen offers a great selection of classical music, and the site is easy to navigate. The only downside is that the recordings are not always of the highest quality.

The Mutopia Project

Mutopia Project offers free classical sheet music that has (according to them) either lapsed into the public domain, or was released with a Creative Commons license that allows for free distribution. The pieces are available in PDF format, and you can find everything from Bach to Stravinsky if you’re willing to put in the time to browse. In addition to being able to download pieces, you can also order printed music from their site if you prefer to have a physical copy.

Conclusion

We hope you’ve enjoyed this guide to finding copyright free classical music. With a little effort, you can find some great options that won’t cost you a dime.

Do you have any favorite copyright free classical music resources? Share them with us in the comments below!