When credit is required
- Creative Commons BY licences require attribution in a reasonable manner. This is a condition of the licence, not a courtesy.
- CC0 and public domain do not require credit.
- Paid and generated music usually does not require credit, but check your licence.
A good credit format
Creative Commons suggests the acronym TASL: Title, Author, Source, Licence.
"Picnic On The Seine" by John Bartmann, from the SoundSafari Public-Domain-Music collection, CC0 1.0
For a CC BY track:
"Track Title" by Artist Name, source link, licensed under CC BY 4.0, link to licence
Where to put it
- YouTube: in the description, ideally with a timestamp if several tracks are used.
- Podcasts: in the episode notes, and optionally spoken at the end.
- Films: in the end credits under music.
- Social posts: in the caption or first comment when space allows.
Crediting generated music
There is no standard yet. If you want to, "Music generated with Sonvela" in the description is clear and honest.
Why credit when it is optional
It helps viewers find the music and the artist, and it shows where your music came from if anyone asks. For CC0 tracks in our free library, each track page gives a ready-made credit line.
Keep a music log
For channels that publish often, keep a simple spreadsheet with the video, the track, the source link, the licence and the date. It takes seconds per video and turns any future claim or question into a quick lookup instead of a search through old downloads.
Written by the Sonvela editorial team with AI drafting assistance, then checked against the sources linked in the text. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it.