Online Sources for Finding Works in the Public Domain

These sites are good places to start looking for works in the public domain; however, you should always check copyright notices for the specific work before using it.

General/Multimedia

Common Content
http://commoncontent.org/
This site includes a searchable catalogue of images, movies, audio, text, and Web sites whose creators have licensed them into the Creative Commons to be used for copying, adapting, etc.

Creative Commons Search
http://search.creativecommons.org/
This search page allows you to search the Web for items that have been licensed in the Creative Commons.

Sound

CCMixter
http://www.ccmixter.org/
This site features music licensed in the Creative Commons.

Freesound
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/
This site focuses on sound, rather than music, licensed in the Creative Commons.

Historical Resources

American Memory Project
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html
This site from the Library of Congress offers collections of images, sounds, and videos, many of which are in the public domain.

New York Public Library Digital Gallery
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/index.cfm
This site offers a searchable database of over 520,000 images scanned from books. Many are in the public domain.

Utopia Portrait Gallery
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/exhibits/portraits/
This searchable collection of portraits of historical figures is in the public domain.

Government Resources

U.S. Government Photos and Multimedia
http://www.usa.gov/Topics/Graphics.shtml
Search from this page for images and other resources from government agencies. Most are in the public domain.

USDA Online Photography Center
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/
The USDA has over 120,000 images of animals, transportation, Americana, and many other categories.

NASA Images
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/highlights/index.html
NASA offers images and other multimedia resources, most of which are in the public domain.