All guides: Copyright guide: Copyright friendly and 'free' resources

Copyright 'free' concepts

REMEMBER for material you find on the internet - check the copyright statement, terms of use, or terms and conditions of the website to establish what is permitted.

The statement may advise if the works on the site can be used for educational purposes, within your organisation, under a Creative Commons licence or are free for use.

Concepts of 'Free' meanings:

Royalty free – pay once use under licence.
Educational use – teaching purposes only
Non-commercial use – no profit or money to be made - where the use is "not primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or private monetary compensation.”
Personal use – your home or personal use.
Within your organisation – use for teaching, report, admin purposes within your organisation – no marketing.
CC0 - “No Rights Reserved”. A Creative Commons licence that indicates the work is in the public domain.

Images - Creative Commons, Open Domain and Public Domain

Creative Commons

Cut Out Mix
Equal, diverse and inclusive renderings of figures for architectural drawings. CC BY 4.0 CC BY 4.0 licence. Attribution required.
Wikimedia Commons
Includes Creative Commons and CC0 Stock images. Attribution is required to use CC images. CC BY 4.0 licence. Attribution required.
CSIRO Science image
All images are free to use under a CC BY 3.0 licence
LibreStock
Stock images on various topics can be filtered by tag. Most images are free to use under CC0. Be careful to identify images with licenses other than CC0 and abide by the terms of use.

CC0 Open Domain - No copyright restrictions

Open Doodles
You can copy, edit, remix, share, or redraw these images for any purpose without restriction under copyright (CC0). Attribution is not required but recommended for academic best practice
Open Peeps
You can copy, edit, remix, share, or redraw these images for any purpose without restriction under copyright (CC0). Attribution is not required but recommended for academic best practice.
Rawpixel
Artworks from international museums. Filter for Public Domain CC0. Attribution is not required but recommended for academic best practice.
Freepixels
Stock photos categorised by concept, objects, architecture and nature. Videos and images released under CC0 licence.
Negative Space
Stock photos. Filter by category or search via free text.
StockSnap
Stock photos. Filter by category or search via free text.

Public domain

Rijksmuseum- Rijksstudio
Almost all artworks are in the Public Domain and can be used freely. Check the Object data for each artwork to verify Public Domain. Attribution is not required but recommended for academic best practice.
State Library Victoria's Digital Image Pool
Copyright free images where duration of copyright has expired. Non culturally sensitive images.
Cleveland Museum of Art
Share, remix, and reuse images of more than 30,000 public-domain artworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Explore more than 406,000 hi-res images of public-domain works from the The Met collection, all of which can be downloaded, shared, and remixed without restriction. Note that some artworks are under copyright or other restrictions.
Smithsonian Open Access
You can download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images and other content under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) with no restrictions. Note that there is some content subject to usage conditions due to copyright and restrictions.

Images - free licences

Stock images. No attribution is required but is appreciated and recommended for academic best practice.

UnSplash
Pexels
Pixabay
Designerpics
Gratisography
Life of Pix
Morguefile
Stock images. Attribution required for non altered images (Suggested credit byline: Photo by at Morguefile.com)

Video - Creative Commons

Dareful
Explore by category. Creative Commons CC BY 4.0. Attribution required.
ABC Open Archives
Various Creative Commons Licenced material. Attribution and other licence requirements required.
YouTube and Vimeo
Find Creative Commons Licenced material. Attribution and other licence requirements required.
Video LibreStock
Indexed video from free video sites. Creative Commons licences vary for each video. Includes CC0 content.

Video - free licences

Stock video. No attribution is required but is appreciated and recommended for academic best practice.

Music and sound effects - Creative Commons

Audionautix
Music licenced under CC BY 4.0. Attribution and other licence requirements required.
Dig CCMIxter
Music licenced under CC BY 3.0 or CC BY-NC 3.0. Attribution and other licence requirements required.
Film Music
Music licenced under CC BY 4.0. Attribution and other licence requirements required.
Musopen
Music licensed under various CC licences. Attribution and other licence requirements required. Some Public Domain material. Attribution not required but recommended for academic best practice.
TeknoAxe Royalty Free Music
Music is mostly licenced under CC BY. Attribution and other licence requirements required.
Pixabay Music
No attribution is required but is appreciated and recommended for academic best practice. Includes some CC0 dedicated material.
Freesound
Effects licensed under various CC licences. Attribution and other licence requirements required.

Music - free licences

Pixabay Music
No attribution is required but is appreciated and recommended for academic best practice. Includes some CC0 dedicated material.
Pixabay sound effects
No attribution is required but is appreciated and recommended for academic best practice. Includes some CC0 dedicated material.

Library subject guides

Copyright guide