Finding Free and Reusable Media
You can easily find and reuse the work of other people or share your work with others and give them permission to reuse it by taking advantage of free Creative Commons (CC) licenses, which are a form of open license. It's important to note that when reusing other people's work, you must follow the terms of the license. In contrast, you can use public domain materials in any way you like since they are no longer protected by copyright (or they never were protected, e.g., many works created by U.S. federal employees). You can find CC-licensed and public domain materials in a variety of places.
General Materials
- Openverse – A search portal created by Creative Commons to make locating CC licensed content simple and easy. You can find over 800 million CC-licensed images and audio.
- Google Images -- Perform your search. On the results page, click on “Tools” then “Usage Rights” and select “Creative Commons licenses”.
- Wikimedia Commons – Over 110 million public domain and openly licensed images.
- Flickr Search – Before searching, click on "Search filters," and choose desired rights status under “Any License”.
- The Noun Project – A searchable collection of icons and symbols that are public domain, CC-licensed, or royalty-free.
- Unsplash and Pixabay – Both sites provide access to more than 2 million images with a license similar to CC BY, except attribution is not required.
- See this useful guide from the Harvard Law Library for more ideas.
Subject-Specific Materials
- Art & Architecture: The Met Collection (click the "Open Access" radio button), National Gallery of Art (U.S.), Smithsonian Institution, Paris Musées (filter by "Images libres des droits"), and more.
- History: Library of Congress, Wellcome Collection (choose desired rights status under “Licenses”), NYPL Digital Collections.
- Science: NASA Image Portal, USGS Maps and USGS Multimedia, NOAA Photo Library.
- Medicine: NIH BioArt, NIH 3D, CDC Public Health Image Library, NIH Images from the History of Medicine (after searching, click on "Copyright" refining tool and select "Public domain").
Other Kinds of Materials
- Text-based content: Use Google Advanced Search (look for “usage rights” at bottom of form and select the best option for you), Project Gutenberg, Catalog of U.S. Government Publications.
- Music: AudionautiX, Jamendo, ccMixter, & more.
- Stock video: Videvo, Beachfront B-Roll.
- More.