public domain music

[drednm]

What web sites have a good selection of public domain music available as free downloads? Everything I've found so far is either costly, provides only sheet music, or offers only contemporary stuff.

[Buster95]

I found a lot of old musics here http://archive.org/details/78rpm" target="_blank" target="_blank"
Here's an example with Paul Whiteman http://archive.org/search.php?query=Paul%20Whiteman" target="_blank" target="_blank"

[Jack Theakston]

FYI, nearly all sound recordings are still under copyright in the US, even those before 1923, as they were copyrighted by State Law, which has no term limit.

One exception to this rule is Edison records, because Edison transferred all of his rights to the US Government when he died and therefore they automatically went into the public domain. You also will have to consider that even though a recording may be in the public domain, the song or piece of music played on the record itself may still be protected under the publisher's copyright.

[drednm]

Thanks for info, Jack.... I knew it would be complicated....

[Bruce Long]

Here's some:
http://www.trachtman.org/rollscans/RollListing.php" target="_blank