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Creative Commons & Openly Licensed Content
This guide provides resources for finding content that is creative commons, public domain, or otherwise openly licensed.
Finding Open and Creative Commons Content
This video introduces several repositories and search tools for finding openly licensed images, video, and more.
Openly Licensed Images
- Openverseover 600 million openly licensed items from a range of sources, mostly images
- Smithsonian Open AccessDownload, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images, including images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.
- PexelsFree stock photos & videos shared by talented creators. All photos and videos on Pexels can be downloaded and used for free. Attribution is not required. Giving credit to the photographer or Pexels is not necessary but always appreciated.
You can modify the photos and videos from Pexels. - Flickr - All Creative Commons SearchThis link takes you to Flickr's advanced search with the "All creative commons" license filter pre-selected. You can adjust the license filter by opening the dropdown menu for "All creative commons."
- Public Health Image LibraryCreated by a Working Group at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the PHIL offers an organized, universal electronic gateway to CDC's pictures.
- Google Images - Creative Commons FilterOn the results page for a Google Image search, go to Tools > Usage Rights and select Creative Commons.
Openly Licensed Video Content
- PexelsFree stock photos & videos shared by talented creators. All photos and videos on Pexels can be downloaded and used for free. Attribution is not required. Giving credit to the photographer or Pexels is not necessary but always appreciated.
You can modify the photos and videos from Pexels. - Prelinger ArchivesPart of the Internet Archive
- Vimeo Creative CommonsBrowse all of the videos on Vimeo that have a Creative Commons license. Note: videos can not be filtered making it somewhat difficult to find specific content.
Openly Licensed Music & Sounds
- Free Music ArchiveOriginal music from independent artists that is free to access and download.
- FreesoundFreesound aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, and all sorts of bleeps, released under Creative Commons licenses that allow their reuse.
- ccMixterThis is a community music remixing site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses.
- Tribe of NoiseAll music available on tribeofnoise.com if CC BY licensed. Login is required to download music. (Their PRO site has music that must be licensed for a fee but the basic musician site requires all music be uploaded with a CC BY license.)
Major Creative Commons Licensed Works
Wikipedia has a list of Major Creative Commons Licensed Works which includes much more than what is listed on this page, including games and video games, news, knowledge, research and science, data, technology, blueprints and recipes.
Diverse & Inclusive Representation
These resources offer openly licensed content to increase representation of diverse populations in your course materials and media.
- Disability Representation Stock PhotosPublic domain stock photos from the University of Kentucky's Human Development Institute with the goal of increasing accurate and diverse representation of individuals with disabilities.