Sound recordings that were first published prior to January 1, 1925 are in the public domain in the United States. For Edison Records recordings that were published before 1925 and that do not incorporate preexisting copyrighted material, the template {{PD-US-record-expired}} may be applicable.

Note: The restored MP3 versions of the recordings from the University of California Santa Barbara Library are available only under an unacceptable non-commercial license.[2] Unedited raw (.wav) versions were formerly available from that site under a dedication into the public domain; while they are no longer available, those .wav files downloaded before the change in policy (dated June 2009) can still be used freely.