I just wanted to ask how the public domain works in relation to music and art. Does anyone have favorite sites with alot of public domain material? Also do I have to contact the author or can I just put their name in the credits without contacting them( if they are alive). I'm about 30% done with a space game and I needed some temporary music/ sound effects until I get some composers interested in helping me. I contacted NASA for art and they only want to be mentioned in the credits. :rolleyes:

This is a bit off topic, but I would love to hear more about your space game. I am currently working on a space station management game (there is a small snippet at http://www.mistaril.com) and it would be nice seeing your work.

My solution for music was to skip it entirely and only use sound effects. I did not find any good quality public domain effects and didn't have time to make them myself so I settled for a 4 CD set from Sound Ideas. It costed quite much (about 450$) but it has saved me a huge amount of time and is high quality. Especially the ambient sounds have been very useful. I think they also have non-roalty music CD:s at about the same price but I don't know about the quality.

I've gotten some really good sound effects and even a bit of music from The Sound Effects Library (http://www.sound-effects-library.com/) in the UK. They're not public domain but they are royalty free.

What's public domain and what's not can be a knotty issue. In general, anything produced by the US government cannot be copyrighted, and very old items (e.g. paintings or literary works -- but nothing by Disney :rolleyes: ) are considered to be in the public domain. Other than that, most everything else is owned by someone.

I also have a problem with finding low-priced artist, but music isn't problem, you can get custom music for very little $, just ask a little arround on forums.
Ie, ask Justin from http://www.jsquaredproductions.com for a quote.

Nedzad
http://www.yupgames.com

I normally dont have an issue finding millions of websites offering graphics, its the quality of the stuff i have problems with.

The other problem i find is that in the small print (very small print) it states you cant use graphics in games, or products of more than a certain amounts of items or days of the week with a y in it...etc etc.:mad:

So any quality web site addresses with open Royalty Free licenses would be appreciated.

Jason

Ps i also like the idea of a space game, hopefully one day i can make my idea.

Kai-Peter the ingame graphics to your game look very professional. The only comment i would have is to work on the web site alittle..lol (but i guess your too busy making your game at the moment.. i have the same problem)