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How you may use our music

(To download these license terms as a printable PDF file, click here.)

Shockwave-Sound.com offers music licensing under two different license types: The Standard License or the Mass Market license.

Standard License:

Grants permission for most commercial uses, including products for sale or give away up to 5,000 copies, use on web site (one site)*, internet video (YouTube, MySpace, Google Video, MetaCafe etc), corporate video/presentation, educational, shareware/freeware game, single location music-on-hold, trade show/presentation, podcast, student film and film festivals. You may sell up to 5,000 physical products or downloadable products that contain the music. You may broadcast the audio on local and regional radio/TV (up to 200 miles/320 km radius).

* (If you have a website based in the United Kingdom, please read additional “Note on UK based web sites” below).

Mass Market License:

This is a license for Mass Market use. It grants all rights included in the Standard License, plus national and world wide radio/TV broadcast, multiple location music-on-hold, reproduction of an unlimited number of items for sale or give-away, and theatrical release license.

What you cannot do with our music, EVEN under the Mass Market License:

You may not trade in the music itself:

You may not trade in the music, i.e. to sell it as a music track, include it on a music CD for sale, offer it for sale or licensing through a web site, or other means of trading in the music as a music product.

You may not create derived works:

You are not allowed to create derived works of our music. What this means is that if you are a musician, music producer, rapper, singer etc, you cannot buy our music, add your own voice/instruments, and then treat that as your own music. What you are doing then is to create new music that is partially built on our music. This is known as "creating derived works" and it is not allowed.

You are however allowed to use our music as background music and add your voice over the music in products such as healing/meditation tapes, self-help tapes, audio-books and similar. Here, even though you have added your voice over the music, you have not created new music based on our music - you haven't created derived musical works - so these uses are fine.

Note on UK based websites:

As of spring 2008, the PRS (Performance Rights Society) in the UK now collects broadcasting fees from UK companies using music on UK web sites. This means that even if you buy a license from us, you also need to buy an Online License from the PRS in order to use music on your site. This applies to all music composed by any composer who is a member of any performance rights society world wide, which includes most of our composers. The PRS Online license typically costs £50 per year and you can obtain this license by filling in a simple PRS form which we can send you in PDF format.

This only applies to persons or businesses in the United Kingdom using music on UK web sites. Also, even if you are using music on a UK based web site, you may still avoid PRS fees by using music composed by those of our composers who are not members of any performance rights society. (See “completely royalty-free” on our site, or ask us).

About giving away our music on custom label CD's:

Whether you buy the Standard or the Mass Market License, the license is for one company or person to use the music within their own media, such as web site, film, advertisement, animation, game, etc. It is not a license to simply duplicate our music as it is.

We are sometimes asked whether it is acceptable to license music from us, put that music on a music CD, and sell or give away that CD as a promotional gift. The answer to this is:

  • If you are creating a music CD to give away for free as a promotional gift (for example, you want to include a free music CD as a bonus gift to somebody who buys a product from you, or just as a gift to your clients), this use is not covered under our Standard License or Mass Market License. Such use comes under the giveaway promotions license, which is detailed on the giveaway promotions license page.

  • If you add your voice over the music (say, a therapy CD or self-help CD with spoken words mixed over the music), this is okay under our Standard License and Mass Market License.

Broadcasting and cue-sheets:

Most (not all) of our composers are members of Performance Rights Organizations (PRO's). Whenever their music is broadcast on TV or radio, you are required to fill in a cue-sheet and hand this cue-sheet over to the broadcasting company along with your film/program. This represents no additional cost, neither to you, nor to the broadcaster, but it is very important to our composers. If you want to know more about this, please read our notes about cue sheets and public performance.

YouTube, MySpace, Google Video and similar video sites

You are welcome to use our music in videos and post the videos to sites like this, and you only need our Standard License to do that. However, it's important that you include information about the music used (track title, name of composer, name of publisher) when you upload your video to YouTube and enter the information into YouTube's system. Assuming correct information is given to YouTube, the composer will earn a "micro payment" from YouTube when the video is watched. This micro-payment is paid by YouTube - not by you. YouTube, in turn, gathers money from advertisers on their site.

It is therefore a requirement of this license that the track title(s), composer name and publisher name are correctly entered when you submit a video that contains our music to YouTube and similar video hosting services. You can find the composer- and publisher-info on page 2 of the Invoice/License document that is made available to you after you make a purchase on our site. If in doubt, feel free to ask us.

Editing/changing the music:

You may edit our music (fade, crop, cut, stretch, loop) etc. to fit your required cue lengths.

You may however not use our music as a basis on which to create new music. (See “You may not create derived works” above).

Credits:

Except where practically impossible or unfeasible, the composer shall always have a credit for his work. Crediting Shockwave-Sound.com is not required, but appreciated.

Privacy:

We take our customers and users privacy seriously. At no time will your personal details or e-mail address be passed onto any other company. As a new customer, you will be added to our own internal mailing list for our monthly music newsletter. This newsletter can easily be unsubscribed from, by following simple instructions included with each newsletter.

We only hold details of our customers' e-mail address, shipping address and telephone number. At Shockwave-Sound we never get to see any financial data such as credit card numbers. These are gathered and processed by our e-commerce partners PayPal or WorldPay. For information regarding their privacy policies, please refer to their websites.

Refund policy:

After you have placed an order, you may cancel any item that you have not yet downloaded and get a refund. If you wish to cancel a purchase of one or more items, simply use the cancellation process described in the email that is automatically sent to you when you place an order. This must be done before the product is downloaded.

Like other shops that sell downloadable products, we do not refund or exchange any product that has been downloaded. Once the download has taken place, the purchase is final.

Disclaimer of consequential damages:

Shockwave-Sound.Com are under no circumstances liable for any damages, consequential or incidental, arising out of the use of the audio or inability to use the audio including without limitation, computer failure, work stoppage or any other damages, even if advised of the possibility of such damages. Because some states and countries do not allow the exclusion for limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages, the above limitation may not apply to you.

Limitation on liability:

Shockwave-Sound.Com's liability shall in NO event exceed the actual price paid for the license.

If you have any questions on how you may or may not use our music, please contact us.

(To download these license terms as a printable PDF file, click here.)

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Browse music genres:

· Corporate/Business/News
· Classical Music:
· Chill-Out Grooves
· Electronic:
     Techno / Trance / House
     Hard / Dark / Industrial
     Melodic electronica
· Ambient:
     Light & General
     Dark & Sinister (Horror)
· Jazz:
     Soft & smooth jazz
     General & faster jazz
     Bossa nova / Latin Jazz
· Soft, Easy, Romantic:
     General Soft / Romance
     Relaxation / Meditation
     Soothing Solo Piano
· Pop and R&B
· Urban, Funk & Hip-Hop
· Film Scores / Soundtrack:
     Cinematic Themes
     Action / Conflict / Intense
     More subtle, low intensity
     Spy / Mystery / Crime
· Mid-tempo Backgrounds
· Rock:
     General Rock
     Hard rock / Heavy metal
     Surf Rock / Tarantino-esque
· Country, Blues & Bluegrass
· Folk & Americana
· Exercise / Aerobics
· Children's Music & Comedy
· Christmas & Holidays:
     Traditional Christmas Music
     Choral Christmas Hymns
     New & Fun Christmas Music
· Short tracks / Idents / Jingles
· World / Ethnic:
     General World / Travel
     Latin (Spanish / Latin Am.)
     African
     India and Middle East
     Oriental / Far East
     Celtic, Irish, Medieval
     Island Sound / Tropical
     European & others
· Other / Unclassifiable

Other Formats::

· Royalty-Free MIDI music
· MOD / XM tracker music
· 5.1 Surround Music

Sound Effects::

· High Resolution Sounds
· Button/menu sounds
· Spacey & Sci-fi sounds
· Nature & Environments
· Action, Impacts, Explosions
· Guns
· Footsteps
· Crowd ambiences, Crowds
· Horror sounds
· Industry & Machinery
· Cartoon / Comedy Sounds
· Household sounds
· Vehicles, Transport, Traffic
· Casino, Pinball, Cards, Games
· Musical sounds/idents
· Miscellaneous sounds

Voices / Vocals:

· American voice samples
· British voice samples
· Robot / computer voices
· Custom voiceover work