Post Music on Tumblr
One frustrating aspect of sharing music online is not being able to play the song when receiving a recommendation from a friend. Instead, we have to look up the song on our own time, and more often than not, we just end up adding the song to an ever-increasing music to-do list. Tumblr solves that problem beautifully by allowing you to make audio posts, so your friends and followers can play the song from your blog.
Contents
Steps
- Sign into your Tumblr account.
- Click on the audio icon on your dashboard. Now you have 3 options for finding the song you want to post on your blog.
Searching for the Song
- Type the name of the song into the search bar. Tumblr has partnered with Spotify and SoundCloud to make some of their music libraries free for your blogging use. Simply enter the song and/or artist name into the search bar and select the file that you want.
- All of the files that come up are by artists who have agreed to let others post their music for non-commercial purposes through Spotify or SoundCloud, so you won't be held responsible for any copyright infringement allegations. Spotify compensates artists for the license to let others use their music, and SoundCloud artists can decide how they would like to protect their music when they upload it.
Posting a URL
- Click the "Use a URL" link. If you have the Spotify or SoundCloud URL for a particular song, click on the "Use a URL" link underneath the search bar. Then type in the URL.
- Type in the URL of the song.
- The song will be pulled by Tumblr to be featured on your blog, but it will not be hosted on Tumblr's servers. Therefore, if Spotify or SoundCloud's servers are down, your song will not play.
- You should also check that the artists have licensed their work under a Creative Commons license to at least allow non-commercial sharing with attribution, no modification.
Upload the Song
- Download an .mp3 file of the song. You can purchase digital copies of songs from several locations online.
- Make sure that your music file is not a protected or locked, like what you get when you purchase music from iTunes. Tumblr will only host .mp3's, so if you have any other file, you'll need to convert it to an .mp3.
- Click on the "Upload a file" link. It's found underneath the search bar.
- Select the .mp3 file from your computer.
- This file will be hosted on Tumblr's servers, so you need to check the box that you have permission to use this file under Tumblr's Terms of Use.
- Upload the album cover art. If it's not already associated with the audio file, you can also upload the cover art. Go back to your blog dashboard, and click "edit" on the audio post. Then click on the dashed square with the text "Select album art" to find a .jpg or .png on your computer of the album cover.
- If the album art is copyright protected, you may not have permission to post it. In that case, you can do without or you can upload another image that reminds you of the song.
Warnings
- You can run into severe copyright violation issues by posting music online. Read the copyright information in this article carefully before proceeding.
- Even if you purchased the .mp3, you may not have the legal right to give others the file or to upload it and allow others to listen. You may be contacted for copyright infringement if the artist did not want their song posted on the Internet. When in doubt, contact the original artist.
