Overview
This page collates, with permission (!), content from the Public Domain guide created by Jenny Strickland, Fine Arts Librarian. Some of the sheet music was from Kris Shanton, Music Librarian.
A couple of articles sent by Prof. Crane brought new sites to my attention; I incorporated them, below.
- “Where to Find Archival Footage: Our Top 7 Websites.” Free Stock Video Footage Download 4K & HD Clips,
- “Copyright and Public Domain: An Updated Primer.” International Documentary Association.
This article links out to Cornell University's useful Public Domain Chart.
If you need to license news footage, here are a few sources:
- AP Archive
- British Pathé (featuring Reuters news)
- Getty Images
Footage.net is a site where you can discover and license footage. Vanderbilt Television News Archive is a site to discover news -- but they do not license content.
Suggestions for additional sources are appreciated. Email me: Cathy Michael
General Sources
- CC SearchCC Search is a tool that allows openly licensed and public domain works to be discovered and used by everyone. Creative Commons, the nonprofit behind CC Search, is the maker of the CC licenses, used over 1.4 billion times to help creators share knowledge and creativity online.
- Hathi Trust: Advanced Full-Text SearchFounded in 2008, HathiTrust is a not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries preserving 17+ million digitized items. You can choose the Format type using this search form.
- Public Domain ProjectDownload thousands of historic media files for your creative projects. Completely free & made available by Pond5.
- National Archives: Advanced SearchCheck Archive Materials Online for online resources. You can also limit to Type (ex. Moving Images) .
- Internet Archive (Prelinger Archives)Includes the Prelinger Archives (archive.org/details/prelinger), Political TV Ad Archive, Wayback Machine (website captures), CNN Transcript Collection and a Television Archive.
- Public Domain ReviewFounded in 2011, The Public Domain Review is an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas that are now in the public domain.
- Moving Image Research Center: Public Domain FilmsLists places to find public domain films as well as places to research the copyright of films.
- Videvo"When we set up Videvo, we wanted to create the world’s largest resource of free, safe-to-use video and audio content on the web. It is our mission to continue to strive towards this goal, providing the highest quality free content on a regular basis, available for everyone to use."
Film
- YouTube Help: Creative CommonsYouTube describes that original content can be assigned with a CC license.
- AP Archive (YouTube)AP Archive is the film and video archive of The Associated Press -- the world's largest and oldest news agency.
- Periscope (YouTube)Periscope Films has been preserving films and making them available to the public. They're a stock footage resource and have licensed footage to broadcast clients the world over, including the BBC, History Channel, Smithsonian, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, PBS, NPR, Netflix, AppleTV, Showtime and media clients like Ubisoft and Black Bean Games. Their rates are competitive and affordable, because they work with clients to meet their needs. (About)
After running a search in YouTube, click on the Filter button. Under the Features column, select Creative Commons.
Example: Documentary
- C-SPANNon-profit corporation funded by cable and satellite affiliates that provides public access to daily political events such as congressional debates.
- Creative Commons on VimeoHere’s where you can browse all the videos on Vimeo that have a Creative Commons license applied to them.
Images
- Google ImagesConduct a Google Image Search. Under tools, select Usage Rights & then Creative Commons licenses.
- Wikimedia CommonsWikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to everyone, in their own language. Unlike traditional media repositories, Wikimedia Commons is free. Everyone is allowed to copy, use and modify any files here freely as long as they follow the terms specified by the author; this often means crediting the source and author(s) appropriately and releasing copies/improvements under the same freedom to others. The license conditions of each individual media file can be found on their description page. The Wikimedia Commons database itself and the texts in it are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- FedFlix (Internet Archive)Here we feature the best movies of the United States Government, from training films to history, from our national parks to the U.S. Fire Academy and the Postal Inspectors, all of these fine flix are available for reuse without any restrictions whatsoever.
- Flickr (Creative Commons)Public photo management site. Many Flickr users have chosen to offer their work under a Creative Commons license, and you can browse or search through content under each type of license.
- Book Images from the Internet Archive (Flickr)Images from books in the Internet Archive posted to Flickr's platform.
- Library of Congress Photos (Flickr)About 3,000 photographs (in color and black and white) and posters from governmental sources such as the Library of Congress, the FBI, National Archives and Department of Defense. Includes portraits of politicians, celebrities, protests, demonstrations, and news shots from around the world. No known copyright exists for the photos included within the collection
- LibreStockLibreStock is a metasearch engine that searches over 40 CC0 licensed images. Contains over 60,781 high quality do-what-ever-you-want stock photos.
- PixabayOn Pixabay you may find and share images free of copyrights. All pictures are released under Creative Commons CC0 into the public domain. You can copy, modify, distribute, and use the images, even for commercial purposes, all without asking for permission or giving credits to the artist. However, depicted content may still be protected by trademarks, publicity or privacy rights.
Take note: Those images marked with the Shutterstock logo are shown to finance Pixabay and to provide a choice of professional photos. - UnsplashOver 300,000 free (do whatever you want) high-resolution photos brought to you by the world’s most generous community of photographers.
- Wellcome CollectionThese artworks and photographs are from the library at Wellcome Collection. Covers "2000 years of human culture". Images on this site are freely available for download for personal, academic teaching or study use, under one of two Creative Commons licences.
Audio
- BensoundRoyalty Free Music Creative Commons License music available.
- dig CCMixterFind theme music for your film or video, or to remix or reuse.
- Freesoundhe Freesound Project aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, ... released under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus License. The Freesound Project provides new and interesting ways of accessing these samples, allowing users to browse the sounds in new ways using keywords, a "sounds-like" type of browsing and more , up and download sounds to and from the database, under the same creative commons license and interact with fellow sound-artists! We also aim to create an open database of sounds that can also be used for scientific research.
- Funky RemixesIt is legal to download, sample and share all the music found on this website.
- Free SFXFreesfx.co.uk provides all of these sounds to you for your use in productions, games, live performances and more. Just credit our site in return.
- IncompetechRoyalty free music.
- LoopermanA free pro audio community for musicians, film and video producers, djs and multi media designers. Members can upload and download royalty free music loops, acapellas and vocals, beats and samples to use in any music software such as steinberg cubase, propellerheads reason, sony acid pro, fruity loops studio, Magix, ableton live, apple garageband etc or macromedia flash projects, video game design or movie soundtracks. All files have mp3 previews .
- Moby Gratises, THAT Moby. This site is a resource for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short.
Moby has made a selection of over 150 tracks from his huge catalog of music available to licence for free, via a simple online application system.
To begin just create a new account, browse the catalog and fill in your application for the tracks you would like to use. You should receive a response to your application within 24 hours.
Once you have finished your film, you can share it with the mobygratis community by uploading to YouTube or Vimeo and adding it here. Connect on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo and Google+ - Partners In RhymeThis site enables the user to download public domain sound effects free of charge. The site has sound effects listed under categories such as animals, domestic, paper, doors etc.
Scores
- American Memory and More: Library of Congress Digital Sheet Music Collectionsfrom the Library of Congress: browse a variety of sheet music collections: Civil War band music, 19th century song sheets, etc.. Includes links to other online collections.
- Historic American Sheet MusicDigital images of 3000+ pieces of sheet music, "published in the United States between 1850 and 1920."
- IMSLP (International Music Score Library Project)a huge collection of digitized scores online, searchable by composer, title, genre, and more
- More Sheet Music Sitesother sites as listed on Harvard's Online Resources for Music Scholars
- MusOpenFree sheet music, royalty free music, and public domain resources.
- Mutopia Project2124 pieces of music – free to download, modify, print, copy, distribute, perform, and record – all in the Public Domain or under Creative Commons licenses, in PDF, MIDI, and editable LilyPond file formats.
- Sheet Music ConsortiumDigitized sheet music from a number of libraries, including UCLA, Indiana University, and Johns Hopkins University (may overlap previously listed collections)
