Videos
Please note that while some repositories listed below contain public domain or Creative Commons–licensed videos, many include videos that are freely accessible but not issued with an open license. Check the rights of any videos you plan to use. In some cases, only linking to a video—not embedding it—may be permitted.
- Big Think
These videos feature experts in a variety of fields speaking on topics in science, technology, business leadership, and others. - CosmoLearning
“Founded with the objective to provide free access to learn from the world’s top scholars, CosmoLearning gathers and organizes educational content in an intuitive environment. Our goal is to develop an innovative interface to discover and learn from new academic content.” - Critical Commons
“Critical Commons is a public media archive and fair use advocacy network that supports the transformative reuse of media in scholarly and creative contexts.” Users post video clips, often with written commentary. - Khan Academy
Khan Academy offers free instructional videos and practice exercises aimed at a global audience. Also see Khan Academy on YouTube. - Library of Congress Event Videos
“The Library of Congress hosts public events featuring authors, world leaders, entertainers, scholars and sports legends. We have been recording Library events for decades and are making those recordings available in this collection.” - Library of Congress National Screening Room
“The National Screening Room showcases the riches of the Library’s vast moving image collection, designed to make otherwise unavailable movies, both copyrighted and in the public domain, accessible to the viewers worldwide.” - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (YouTube)
- Medical Images: Videos & Multimedia
This LibGuide from the University of Pennsylvania lists hubs of freely accessible surgical and medical videos. - Medline Plus: Health Videos
“These animated videos show the anatomy of body parts and organ systems and how diseases and conditions affect them.” - Moving Image Archive (Internet Archive)
“This library contains digital movies uploaded by Archive users which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. Many of these videos are available for free download.” - National Park Service Multimedia Search
Use the filters on the left to find videos and webcam feeds. Note that only multimedia credited to NPS without any copyright symbol are in the public domain; other videos may have rights reserved. - TED
“TED is a nonpartisan nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks. TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics—from science to business to global issues—in more than 110 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world.” - U.S. National Archives (YouTube)
This YouTube channel is maintained by the U.S National Archives. Also see the complete list of YouTube channels maintained by other organizations within the archives, as well as transcripts of videos. - VideoLectures.NET
This site is a “free and open access educational video lectures repository. The lectures are given by distinguished scholars and scientists at the most important and prominent events like conferences, summer schools, workshops and science promotional events from many fields of Science.” - Vimeo
Vimeo is a platform for hosting and sharing videos. Not all videos on Vimeo are freely accessible. - World Lecture Project
“With more than 50,000 videos (wlp)° became one of the largest video libraries for academic videos with contributions of most outstanding scholars and scientists from around the globe. You can sort systematically through videos from many different disciplines, universities, and countries and find embedded videos provided by huge video platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, or Dailymotion, but also linked videos from universities and other educational institutions.” - YouTube Learning
Find playlists organized by topic and theme.
Images
These collections include images in the public domain and licensed with Creative Commons and other similar open licenses. Check the rights of any images you plan to use.
- Age-positive image library
This collection of images from the Centre for Aging Better is intended to show “positive and realistic images of over 50s in a bid to challenge negative and stereotypical views of older age.” These images are dedicated to the public domain via the CC0 1.0 dedication; check the guide for more information on using the images. - Disabled and Here Collection
“This stock library is a disability-led effort to provide free and inclusive images from our own perspective, with photos and illustrations celebrating disabled Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC).” Images are licensed CC BY 4.0; check the Usage Guidelines for more information on using the images. - Diversity and inclusion—open collections from across the world
“Digitised cultural heritage collections can play an important role in protecting and promoting diversity and inclusion. Explore this selection of material from across the world featuring the cultural heritage of various communities.” - flaticon
Flaticon makes vector icons and stickers available for use on websites and other materials. Check the license on any specific icon or image you plan to use to ensure that your usage is permitted. Attribution is often required. - Flickr Advanced Search
To find Creative Commons–licensed and other rights-free images, select the desired criteria from the drop-down menu on the left. Options include “All creative commons,” “No known copyright restrictions,” and so on. - FreeDigitalPhotos.net
To download images, you’ll need to provide an email address or register, and you may also be asked to watch an ad. See the terms and conditions for details on using images from this site. - The Gender Spectrum Collection
“Limited representations of trans and non-binary people in media restricts the range of stories in which we imagine those subjects. With this collection, we hope to encourage richer portrayals of trans and non-binary personhood: These images do not define members of these communities only by their gender identities, but as people with careers, relationships, talents, passions, and home lives.” The images in this collection are all licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0; read the guidelines about their use. - The Greats
This collection provides “remarkably designed campaign materials (posters, social media visuals, postcards and many more) concerning human rights issues to be printed, shared or adapted (non-commercially) and distributed by activists and organizations all across the world, online and offline.” Images are licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. - Google Images
After entering your search terms and getting a gallery of results, click on “Tools” in the menu above the results. Then click on “Usage Rights” and select “Creative Commons licenses” from the drop-down menu to filter the results for Creative Commons–licensed images from Wikimedia, Flickr, and other sites. - Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
Check the box next to “Show public domain images only” before entering your keywords in the search bar. For more information on using this site, see the LACMA blog Unframed. - Nappy
“Beautiful photos of Black and Brown people, for free.” These images are dedicated to the public domain via the CC0 1.0 dedication. - National Park Service Multimedia Search
Use the filters on the left to find photos. Note that only multimedia credited to NPS without any copyright symbol are in the public domain; other photos may have rights reserved. - NOAA Photo Library
“The NOAA Photo Library collections reflect NOAA’s broad mission of advancing science ‘from the bottom of the ocean to the surface of the Sun.’ […] The collection includes thousands of weather and space images, hundreds of images of shores and coastal seas, and thousands of marine species images ranging from whales to the most minute plankton.” All images are in the public domain. - Noun Project
Noun Project provides two sets of resources: a collection of more than 3 million icons and a “professionally curated collection of authentic, beautiful images that celebrate diversity and represent a more inclusive world.” Icons are available for free download under a CC BY 3.0 license; photos are available for free download under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license. Users need to log in to download resources and may pay to download and use icons and photos without attribution. - Open Access Artworks (The Met)
- Open Access at the National Gallery of Art
“The National Gallery of Art has an open access policy for images of works of art in our permanent collection which the Gallery believes to be in the public domain. Images of these works are available for download free of charge for any use, whether commercial or non-commercial.” - Open Peeps
Use these hand-drawn images by Pablo Stanley to create characters. “The library works like building blocks made of vector arms, legs, and emotions. You can mix these elements to create different Peeps.” These illustrations are dedicated to the public domain via the CC0 1.0 dedication. - Openverse
Formerly known as CC Search, Openverse is now part of WordPress. It searches for openly licensed and public domain works. This tool is helpful when you are searching for a variety of media (both images and music; other media may be added later), but do confirm the licensing and attribution information before using or remixing. - Pexels
“Pexels provides high quality and completely free stock photos licensed under the Pexels license.” - Pixabay
This repository includes stock photos licensed under the Pixabay license. First results are often sponsored and lead to fee images; skip over these. - PIXNIO
This repository includes stock photos licensed under the Pixnio license. - Smithsonian Collections Search Center
Select the filter “Only return results with CC0 media” to search for media in the public domain. - Unsplash
Unsplash provides high-quality, stylish stock photos taken by photographers around the world. Note that the Unsplash license is different from Creative Commons licenses in that attribution is not required, although it is appreciated. Unsplash maintains a FAQ about using its photographs. - What are good resources for finding diverse images of people?
This wiki at OEG Connect lists sites where openly licensed or royalty-free diverse images are available. Check the terms of use before using images from any of these sites; not all of them provide openly licensed images. - Wikimedia Commons
The search bar is in the upper right of the main page. After initiating a search, filter for “Images,” and select the desired license from the “License” drop-down menu.
Music and Sound
- Audio Archive (Internet Archive)
“This library contains recordings ranging from alternative news programming, to Grateful Dead concerts, to Old Time Radio shows, to book and poetry readings, to original music uploaded by our users. Many of these audios and MP3s are available for free download.” - BBC Sound Effects Library
“The BBC Sound Effects Archive is available for personal, educational or research purposes. There are over 33,000 clips from across the world from the past 100 years.” According to the FAQ page, “as a general rule, as long as your usage remains non-commercial, you can use sound effects for free, crediting the BBC”; more detailed licensing information is also provided. - ccMixter
“This is a community music remixing site featuring remixes and samples 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.” - Collections with Audio Recordings (Library of Congress)
- DanoSongs Royalty Free Music
Find royalty-free music for use in “videos, films, apps, games, presentations, podcasts and other media” from the musician Dan-O at this site. The music is licensed for non-commercial use only. See details about the license before using in a remix; the license is similar to but not the same as a CC BY-NC license. - Free Music Archive (FMA)
“Free Music Archive (FMA), founded in 2009 by radio station WFMU, offers free access to open licensed, original music. […] Every MP3 you discover on Free Music Archive is pre-cleared for certain types of uses that would otherwise be prohibited by copyright laws that were not designed for the digital era.” See the FAQ for details about what uses are permitted by the different licenses. - Freesound
“Freesound aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, … released under Creative Commons licenses that allow their reuse.” - LibriVox
LibriVox provides free public domain audiobooks read by volunteers. - National Park Service Multimedia Search
Use the filters on the left to find audio and podcasts. Note that only multimedia credited to NPS without any copyright symbol are in the public domain; other audio and podcasts may have rights reserved. - Openverse
Formerly known as CC Search, Openverse is now part of WordPress. It searches for openly licensed and public domain works. This tool is helpful when you are searching for a variety of media (both images and music; other media may be added later), but do confirm the licensing and attribution information before using or remixing.
