What do Freesound's per-sound Creative Commons licences, attribution guidance and AI-training answers say at the access date, and where does Freesound's own summary go beyond or differ from the Creative Commons legal texts?
Freesound distributes each sound under the licence its uploader chose (CC0, CC BY or CC BY-NC 4.0, plus legacy Sampling+). Its FAQ now answers AI training as "yes as long as individual sounds' Creative Commons licenses are respected" and, as of July 2026, adds uploader-level Gen AI preferences (open-source-only, non-commercial open-source-only, no generative AI, and a voice opt-out) on top of the licence, exposed to API users for filtering and in Data Packs. Freesound labels its CC-to-training reading as its own interpretation (for example CC-BY requires disclosing the training set); the CC legal code text does not mention AI and the CC FAQ says the answer depends.
Freesound distributes each sound under the licence its uploader chose (CC0, CC BY or CC BY-NC 4.0, plus legacy Sampling+). Its FAQ now answers AI training as "yes as long as individual sounds' Creative Commons licenses are respected" and, as of July 2026, adds uploader-level Gen AI preferences (open-source-only, non-commercial open-source-only, no generative AI, and a voice opt-out) on top of the licence, exposed to API users for filtering and in Data Packs. Freesound labels its CC-to-training reading as its own interpretation (for example CC-BY requires disclosing the training set); the CC legal code text does not mention AI and the CC FAQ says the answer depends.
Curator qualifications: 18 of 18 excerpts with readbacks present. CC BY 4.0 and BY-NC 4.0 legal code: 0 for AI (word), artificial, machine learning, data mining, text and data; the single 'train' hit in each is the site navigation 'Training + Webinars'. Freesound tos_web: 0 'preference', 0 'generative' (confirms F5). Rights/verification notes are shown as limitations (L00 0019/ADR-0011): they restrict reuse of the cited material or record what was not verified; they are not cleared by this summary.
Limitations: [rights_conflict_record] Rights conflict preserved (Freesound interpretation vs CC legal texts and FAQ); no legal conclusion.
Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.
Structured fields
{
"citations": [
{
"url": "https://freesound.org/help/tos_web/",
"note": "freesound.org/help/faq (live; bytes differ from pin); freesound.org/help/tos_web (live); freesound.org/help/tos_api (live); CC BY-NC 4.0 legal code (equals pin); CC BY 4.0 legal code (equals pin); CC FAQ (equals pin)"
},
{
"url": "https://freesound.org/help/faq/",
"note": "freesound.org/help/faq (live; bytes differ from pin); freesound.org/help/tos_web (live); freesound.org/help/tos_api (live); CC BY-NC 4.0 legal code (equals pin); CC BY 4.0 legal code (equals pin); CC FAQ (equals pin)"
},
{
"url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode.en",
"note": "freesound.org/help/faq (live; bytes differ from pin); freesound.org/help/tos_web (live); freesound.org/help/tos_api (live); CC BY-NC 4.0 legal code (equals pin); CC BY 4.0 legal code (equals pin); CC FAQ (equals pin)"
},
{
"url": "https://freesound.org/help/tos_api/",
"note": "freesound.org/help/faq (live; bytes differ from pin); freesound.org/help/tos_web (live); freesound.org/help/tos_api (live); CC BY-NC 4.0 legal code (equals pin); CC BY 4.0 legal code (equals pin); CC FAQ (equals pin)"
},
{
"url": "https://creativecommons.org/faq/",
"note": "freesound.org/help/faq (live; bytes differ from pin); freesound.org/help/tos_web (live); freesound.org/help/tos_api (live); CC BY-NC 4.0 legal code (equals pin); CC BY 4.0 legal code (equals pin); CC FAQ (equals pin)"
},
{
"url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.en",
"note": "freesound.org/help/faq (live; bytes differ from pin); freesound.org/help/tos_web (live); freesound.org/help/tos_api (live); CC BY-NC 4.0 legal code (equals pin); CC BY 4.0 legal code (equals pin); CC FAQ (equals pin)"
}
]
}Evidence claims
- [sourced_fact] Freesound distributes each sound under the licence its uploader chose (CC0, CC BY or CC BY-NC 4.0, plus legacy Sampling+). Its FAQ now answers AI training as "yes as long as individual sounds' Creative Commons licenses are respected" and, as of July 2026, adds uploader-level Gen AI preferences (open-source-only, non-commercial open-source-only, no generative AI, and a voice opt-out) on top of the licence, exposed to API users for filtering and in Data Packs. Freesound labels its CC-to-training reading as its own interpretation (for example CC-BY requires disclosing the training set); the CC legal code text does not mention AI and the CC FAQ says the answer depends. · locator: freesound.org/help/faq (live; bytes differ from pin); freesound.org/help/tos_web (live); freesound.org/help/tos_api (live); CC BY-NC 4.0 legal code (equals pin); CC BY 4.0 legal code (equals pin); CC FAQ (equals pin) source
Rights
| component | license | hosting | redistribution | modification | training | Evidence and notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| documentation | unknown | permitted | permitted | unknown | unknown | Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources. |