I'm looking for old music from specifically the 1930s & 1940s for a short B&W film I am doing. The only thing is....I want "genuine authentic" sounding period music and not music that is manufactured "today" to sound retro-30s&40s. If it was made recently but has a genuine 30s & 40s flavor to it...I would like to check it out too. I'm hoping that there is somewhere that I can find real old music that was actully made back then to use for cheap or something. I don't care if the music is upbeat or sad. Can anyone please help?

http://www.archive.org/details/78rpm ?

Nice resource, but what makes it "royalty-free?" Is there a time limit before the music becomes public domain?

Music from that time is public domain.... UNLESS

A music production thing... place... now wait... thing... bought the rights.

So basically, its like walking on thin ice.... you have to do your research to find out what is out in the public domain, or what is still held as copyrighted.

This is very good reading on the subject: http://www.pdinfo.com/record.htm