Absolutely, Totally Royalty Free Music

When colleges or universities partner with commercial entities, it can be a win-win situation. The Ball State University Copyright Center collaborated in a successful partnership with the online commercial music resource, Award Winning Music (AWM).

AWM, located in Medford, Oregon, offers commercial royalty-free music and sound effects for educational purposes including music that can be used for PowerPoint presentations, distance education courses, creative projects, multimedia projects, electronic portfolios, and in support of any other curriculum-based instructional activities. All of the downloads are MP3 files and have excellent sound quality.

AWM is a leader in providing commercial music that is heard in major motion pictures and television programming. Their clients include Warner Brothers, Universal Studios, Xerox and Intel. Through the generosity of its president, Shaun Harris, Award Winning Music provides totally free music and sound effects for Ball State University and any other educational institutions.

Ball State students and faculty can access AWM royalty-free music and sound effects through the University Copyright Center by going to their site, www.royaltyfreemusic.com and, about halfway down the right column, you will see this “Music Promo Logon” where you will be asked for a username [ballstate] and password [allfree] in lowercase letters.

Currently, there are 105 sound effects and several selections of music from these genres:
Background Music and Music on Hold
Corporate Presentation
Acoustic
Documentary, Film, Television, News and General Production
Sports, Action, Corporate and Drama
Hip-Hop / Urban
New Age
Euro / Techno / DanceRock

For each selection, choices are to [Play Sample] Download: [Full Track] [60 Second Segue] [30 Second Segue]

According to Mr. Harris, there will be more content added to the site. Ball State students and faculty are encouraged to take advantage of this free music partnership, download your free music and sound effects and enhance creative endeavors.

This article was published in The Library Insider May 2006, pg. 4.

BSU Copyright Conference Draws Large Crowd

On Wednesday, April 12, 2006 librarians, technologists, attorneys, administrators, and media specialists from Indiana and eight surrounding states visited the Ball State campus for the third annual copyright conference, “Copyright Challenges and Opportunities.”

Hosted by the Ball State University Libraries and chaired by Dr. Fritz Dolak, Manager of the University Copyright Center, more than 125 individuals gained insights on a variety of intellectual property topics, such as orphan works, digital licensing, the top ten digital legal issues facing educational institutions, Google, Fair Use, and more.
Dr. O’Neal Smitherman, Ball State University’s Vice President for Information Technology and Executive Assistant to the President, welcomed attendees and set the conference’s tone and agenda. In his comments, he highlighted our need to understand the importance of owner’s intellectual property rights as well as those of the users of intellectual property in the Digital Age.

Diane Norton, Wabash College’s Music Librarian, commented that the conference was “…truly one of the most well-organized, interesting, and informative conferences I have ever attended. Your speakers were stellar and explored a lot of material.” Diane will use the new information she gained from the conference to develop standard intellectual property guidelines for faculty at Wabash College.

The nationally-known speakers were Jule Sigall, J.D., Associate Register for Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Copyright Office in Washington, D.C., Dr. Kenneth Crews, J.D., from Indiana University, Dwayne Buttler, J.D., from the University of Louisville, Kevin Smith, J.D., from Duke University, and Michelle Cooper, J.D., from the Indianapolis law firm of Bose McKinney & Evans LLP.

At the close of the conference attendees had the opportunity to ask questions from a panel of four intellectual property lawyers in an open microphone, open forum session. Barry Umansky, J.D., a professor in the Department of Telecommunications at BSU and representing Ball State University’s Digital Policy Institute, moderated the panel.

For information, contact Fritz Dolak, Copyright and Intellectual Property Manager, FDolak@bsu.edu or (765) 285-5330.

This story can be found in The Library Insider, pg. 3.
www.bsu.edu/libraries/virtualpress/libinsider/libinsiderv4i4.pdf