As a photographer, I know what it feels like to have my images used without my permission. Those of us who earn a living selling photos are particularly sensitive to Copyright infringement. Yet, countless times, I see photographers using illegal music in their public slide shows. It’s time to put an end to that practice.

Reading this article made me realise that even if you show your AVs only at club meetings you should not use music that you are not licensed to use. Current feeling in the club is that using any music is acceptable if you are not going to show your AVs at public venues for which admission is being charged. Seemingly this is not the case.

Need a worry-free background track for a multimedia project, or just some new tunes to work into your daily mix? The Free Music Archive, a project of indie freeform station WFMU, has downloads and streams galore.

None of the free music down load sites I use in the U.S. work in S.A. like my favorite one http://www.Kazaa.com I did a general South African “google” search and found similar sites however they are not free but legal. I have not tested any of them due to my slow internet service and my lack of time seeing that I am departing on Sunday for a trip through South Africa. I suggest you visit the website and then decide for yourself which of these would suit your needs best. Rhapsody I believe cost .99c U.S. but may have a larger collection to choose from. Go Music I believe is 70c S.A. but I am not sure if there selection is all that inclusive.

http://mp3.rhapsody.com/

http://www.gomusic.ru/

I also included few free “software programs” here for your perusal. I used them in the U.S. and found them very helpful with the music files I downloaded of the internet.

Free Rip is a free site that comes in very handy it allows you to make any and all music files compatible with the requirements of the software program you are using.

For Example: Your software requires a WAV file format but the song you like is in a MP3 file format. All you do is download Free Rip place it on your desk top and drag the file into Free Rip and it will convert your MP3 file into WAV or vise versa and the best part… it’s free.

http://www.freerip.com/

Then for the very creative daredevil’s go to http://www.a1freesoundeffects.com/

Here you can get studio quality “sound effects”, for a minimal fee, or regular sound effects completely free… so they say. I did not test if the studio sound effects part of this site will work in S.A. but I did test the free one and it worked.

Good Luck and have fun….