How to find free music, images, and video you can use or remix in your own creative works

Creative Commons Resources

Below you will find a list of services and websites that provide content that you can use as building blocks in your own works.  From music, to video, to images, these services give you public domain and/or openly licensed (ie. Creative Commons licensed) content that you can reuse in your own work.

MUSIC / AUDIO

CCMixter :"This is a community music remixing site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses. Music on this site is licensed under Creative Commons licenses. You are free to download and sample from music on this site and share the results with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Some songs might have certain restrictions, depending on their specific licenses. Each submission is marked clearly with the license that applies to it."

OPSounds :"All sounds in the Opsound pool are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (a copyleft license similar to those used in the free and open source software communities) or are placed in the public domain (the license information for each song can be found under the song link."

Incompetech: "This one is super easy to browse through. You can search song by genre, feel or keywords. "By default, they are licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0. To use this license, simply attribute the music in your piece (website, film, phone system, etc.) as is reasonable to the medium. (more info on attribution). There is no cost to use music under the Creative Commons License."

SectionZ :" On SectionZ.com we use the audio specific licenses........Each of the Creative Commons icons means something regarding the type of conditions for each license. For an explaination of the Creative Commons icons that appear below"

Jamendo: Has a great deal of Creative Commons licensed music, and also sells various types of licenses to reuse music in certain ways.

Indabamusic.com: Perhaps a glimpse at the future of music, this site offers an opportunity for musicians worldwide to collaborate and create together.  Often holds contests and hosts a great deal of Creative Commons licensed work as well.

Freemusicpublicdomain.com:  This intuitive site offers a robust free music library, music for reasonable fees, as well as Creative Commons licensed works. This site is a good resource for personal or commercial use.

Ordered by size of collection, largest first:

• Wikimedia Commons hosts only freely licensed images, sound files, and other media. With over 12 million uploaded files, (as of January 2012), it is the largest free "images-only" repository. It contains many public domain images. Commons is the primary repository of media for all Wikimedia projects. Media on Commons can be used readily on all Wikimedia projects, just as if the media were uploaded to the projects directly. Media tagged with the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark can be found here
• The New York Public Library has a rapidly growing database of public domain digitial images and documents.
   
• Unsplash:Releases 10 CC0 Photos every 10 days!
• Public Domain Photos - Free for commercial redistribution and alteration - As of January 1, 2011, public-photo.net contents were moved to a new domain: publicphoto.org. All photographs available on this site are 100% free for use. The site has more than 1,600 galleries consisting of over 19 thousand unique photos. At least three galleries--that is, up to 30-40 photos--are added to the site daily. Each image can be downloaded in at least four dimensional sizes: thumbnail, normal, large and very large. Photos are up to 4752 x 3168 maximum resolution. (old domain: moka.t2i.info - Moka Gallery)
• Google images hosts a large repository of LIFE images; Time Warner, Inc. claims blanket copyright to everything but this is simply untrue. (see here and also see here) Anything more than 120 years old (i.e. - before 1889) is generally safe. (exception is if the original author died less than 75 years ago--45 years after these PD pictures have been taken--, the author lived in a state with Common law copyright, and the name of the author is known---and in that case Time itself is most likely in copyright violation.) You must remove the watermark if you use the larger image.
• TotallyFreeImages.com - Totally free public-domain images - This is the largest archive on the Internet with over 494,000 hi-res professional-grade royalty-free images, 100% public-domain and acceptable for use with Wikipedia.
• Photos Public Domain Thousands of high quality public domain photographs free for any use, with no restrictions. Collections included are: textures, animals, nature, and a variety of stock images for any use, including commercial.
• Free Photo Gallery Public Domain Images - Free stock and recreational photos licensed under Creative Commons; may be used for commercial and non-commercial purposes.
• Picdrome - growing Public Domain picture collection: no copyright, licensed under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication. All items are free to download and use, without restriction.
• Pixabay - Public domain images without any limitation (private and commercial use)
• / Alegri Photos - Public domain and Creative Commons images
• Public-Domain-Photos.com
• Public Domain Cliparts Over 8000 public domain cliparts.
• 4 Free Photos Public domain images.
• Free Stock Image Site Collection of public domain stock images.
• Montenegro Photo Free images of Montenegro (Former Yugoslavia).
• FreeStockPhotos.biz A large collection of Public Domain, GNU, Creative Commons & custom licensed stock photos and clip art.
• BestPhotos.us Search millions of public domain photos or browse the best
• Ars Publik - A great collection of public domain images from around the web, hand-selected for use in web and graphic design.
• Public Domain Pictures A large collection of high quality pictures for free. Possibility to contact the authors for original files.
• http://ushistoryimages.com/ - A growing collection of free images related to United States history.
• RepublicDomain.com is a place for free public domain photos and desktop wallpapers.
• Public-domain.zorger.com features scans of art from pre-1922 books and various photos, free for any use]
• Easy Stock Photos - Royalty free stock photos, pictures, images and information in the public domain - Collection of public domain photos organized by category in image galleries.
• Phototeria.com The site presents a large Collection of Public Domain images only. It's very easy to navigate Phototeria.com which benefits not so experienced users or young folks.
• Reusable Art - An ever-growing collection of vintage drawings, illustrations and photographs from books, magazines and other printed materials. Original publication information is included with each image for copyright verification. All images meet or exceed the Berne Convention standard for a creative work to be in the public domain.
• Karen Whimsy's Public Domain Images - Scans of engravings and other artwork from a personal collection of old books, magazines, and post cards. Updated regularly.
• Word Processor Clipart - Public Domain clipart optimized for use in word processors. Browsable via site treeview and thumbnail pages. Complete collection also downloadable from ibiblio.
• Project Gutenberg - 12,000+ books, only a few illustrated, but the number of illustrated books increases from week to week. There are thousands of PD images available.
• Open Clip Art - This project is an archive of public domain clip art. The clip art is stored in the W3C scalable vector graphics (SVG) format.
• clker - Easy to search public domain images, directly usable in openoffice.org
• Open Domain - public domain images from various sources in one-a-day blog format.
• PD Photo - Large collection of mostly public domain photos. Read the license for each picture before use; also, model releases may not have been obtained for all photos.
• Logo Design Web Stockphotos - Small but growing public domain stock photos released by photographer.
• http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/public/public_domain.htm - Scanned and colorised etchings claimed to be PD images.

If any page or image seems missing, replace http://www.sru.edu/depts/cisba/compsci/dailey in its URI with http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/

• Free Photos - Small personal photographic collection dedicated to the public domain.
• http://www.mathpuzzle.com/loyd/ Images of pages of a 1914 book of puzzles
• http://content.lib.washington.edu/costumehistweb/index.html - This collection includes 417 fashion plates from 1806-1914 from some of the leading fashion journals of the time.
• Public Domain Spain Photo Gallery - Photo archive containing a collection of free, public domain images and photos of Spain.
• Public Domain Footage - Public domain archival stock footage and newsreels.
• Public Domain Clip Art- 25,000+ Public Domain Clip Arts (good for printing). Categorized & searchable.
• Finally Creative Gallery Hundreds of categorized photos free for public use. Images added frequently.
• Public Domain Depot A collection of public domain photos and resources with many original photos from the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
• Free Images Collection A collection of free, copyright-free, high resolution images.
• Open Galleries A community source of free photography, hosting several galleries with photos from all over the world.
• Free Digital Photos Over 240 different categories each containing royalty free large photos and images that are in the public domain. Free to use for personal or commercial purposes.
• Dated Images A blog with weekly postings of dated public domain images.
• http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.com/ - Articles providing old photographs with sourced research as to their origins and history.
• Vintage Pixels A collaborative database of found vintage photos. Free for use in amateur and commercial projects.
• Free Public Domain Images on PlanetEarthForFree.com - PlanetEarthForFree free public domain images page
• The Best Copyright-Free Photo Libraries -search for images on government sites
• http://www.unclesamsphotos.com a detailed directory of the US Government's public domain image galleries
• http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/links/clipart.html (a lengthy list of categorised links to other public domain image sources, many of those links don't work though)
• Clip Art/Public Domain at the Open Directory Project (a list of links to sites with public domain clip art)
• http://images.google.com - this still requires one to check the copyright status of each image.
• XPASE Public Domain - A directory of various public domain resources.
• USCITES.gov - Endangered species photos, illustrations and video provided by the U.S. Delegation to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (commonly referred to as CITES)
• http://www.archive.org/details/USGovernmentDocuments Government Documents scanned by the Internet Archive
• NPS Historic Photograph Collection - National Park Service
• http://images.fws.gov/ - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service imagery
• images.google.com - use the advanced search feature to return images from the site or domain ".gov". {{PD-USGov}} may apply to such images.
• http://images.usace.army.mil/main.html - United States Army Corps of Engineers Digital Visual Library
• U.S. Library of Congress digital image archive. (Some images are still under copyright, so caveat emptor.)
• http://nationalatlas.gov Lots of .GIF image maps, such as Congressional District maps, all in the public domain.
• USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Photo Gallery
• U.S. Antarctic Program Photo Library
• http://terraserver-usa.com/default.aspx - free public access to a vast data store of maps and aerial photographs of the United States originating from USGS. {{PD-USGov-USGS}} may apply to such images.
• http://visualsonline.cancer.gov/ -Great resource for electron microscopy and histological images. Includes general biomedical and science-related images, cancer-specific scientific and patient care-related images, and portraits of directors and staff of the National Cancer Institute.
• USDA Agriculture Research Service Image gallery A "complimentary source of high quality digital photographs available from the Agricultural Research Service Information Staff."
• U.S. Census Bureau Photo Services - all images in the public domain but a photo credit is requested.
• http://www.defenselink.mil/multimedia/ - Current DoD publicly released image
• http://www.dodmedia.osd.mil/ - DoD Defense Visual Information Center (High-resolution US military imagery; use with {{PD-USGov-Military-DVIC}} license template.)
• The Congressional Pictorial Directory - also available in book form.
• Department of the Navy - Naval Historical Center Photographic Section
• History of Medicine at the National Library of Medicine. Most but not all of the exhibitions are PD. Clicking on "Metadata" near the bottom of the page will generate a popup window with information that includes Rights usage for each page.
• NOAA Photo Library
• http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov - Congressional sites have a broad variety of public domain images, especially photographs of representatives and senators.
• USDA Online Photography Center
• Vacations.info - Travel related photos
• Armed Forces Institute of Pathology Pathology and histology slides made by the US Government.
• MedPix Medical Image Database Hosting by Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. The terms of use of the site state that the original submitter may retain copyright. Nearly all of the submitters are US Government physicians. The status of the submitter is available to verify that an individual image is in the public domain.
• Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
• Oakland Public Library. Not all are PD! The image detail page will state the status, PD images will be clearly marked "Public domain".
• The Public Domain Review - A Blog by the Open Knowledge Foundation to easily access public domain resources.
• Open Image Bank - Free photos and images for any use. No registration required.
• Public Domain Photo - Growing bank of a variety of free photos in blog format. All photos are taken by the site owner who has released them into the public domain.

Subject-based Collections

Ordered by subject, alphabetically:

Art

Note: Accurate photographs of two-dimensional visual artworks lack expressive content and are automatically in the public domain once the painting's copyright has expired (which it has in the US if it was published before 1923). All other copyright notices can safely be ignored.

• http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/
• http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ - The Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS) is an American art catalog compiled by the Smithsonian Institute. It has many reproductions of American paintings. However, it is known to have a number of factual errors, so it should be used with great care.
• http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artistindex.php - Images of the works of more than 2,600 realist painters, many in the public domain; check catalogue for dates of works and artists. Note: Accurate photographs of two-dimensional visual artworks lack expressive content and are automatically in the public domain once the painting's copyright has expired (which it has in the US if it was published before 1923). All other copyright notices can safely be ignored.