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Copyright for Students and Faculty: Student Projects

Copyright This guide is intended to provide information about copyright and should not be construed as legal advice. If you have legal questions concerning copyright, please consult appropriate legal counsel.

Using Media in a Class Project

When you're using any kind of media for a class project (whether it be images, audio, or video), your best bet is to use open content. Content that is considered “open” is that which is available under an open license or part of the Public Domain.

Openly licensed content, as the name implies, is any work that has an open license assigned to it. This means that the rightsholder has given advanced permission for anyone to use and reuse their work (subject to the license terms). When you use open content, you do not need to restrict access to your class or academic environment.

The most common type of open license is the Creative Commons (CC) License. There are 6 different CC licenses, each with their own terms (the Creative Commons website breaks down each of these in plain English). When you come across a work with a CC license, you are free to reuse it, as long as you attribute the original creator. Note that most of the CC licenses have additional conditions, so it’s important to read the specific license terms.

Media that is in the Public Domain (not restricted by copyright) is also safe to use in class projects. A work becomes part of the Public Domain when its copyright expires, its copyright was not properly renewed, or the creator dedicates the image to the Public Domain. There are many resources that curate collections of Public Domain materials (see sections below on finding open content), so you don’t have to make these determinations yourself.

Always read and comply with the use restrictions for specific sources.

  • Some collections may include a mix of open and restricted content. Always look for a rights statement or terms of use on the individual work.
  • If you’re using CC licensed content, be sure to look at and abide by the conditions of the specific license that’s assigned.

Always cite or attribute images someone else created.

  • If you’re using CC licensed content, you are required to attribute the original author. Ideally, your attribution should include the title of the work, author, source, and the type of license. Here are some good (and not so good) examples of attribution. You can also try using Open Washington’s Open Attribution Builder.
  • If you’re using Public Domain content, you’re technically not required to credit the creator, but it's strongly encouraged.
  • Your professor will usually have a required or suggested citation style for your project. Many citation styles address how to cite media. For example: APA Clip Art or Stock Image References

Finding Images that Are Licensed to Use

  • Creative Commons Image Search *Best Bet*
    CC Search is a tool that searches across more than 300 million openly licensed and public domain images. Image sources include museums, libraries, and other cultural institutions.
  • Wikimedia Commons
    Historical and contemporary images contributed by participants. Millions of high-resolution images of art, architecture, design, people, historical events, diagrams, maps, and more.
  • Flickr Creative Commons
    Flickr contains millions of photographs shared by Flickr users under Creative Commons licenses, and is a strong source for contemporary travel, nature, people, and design photographs. Flickr's Creative Commons portal allows you to browse by license type or choose "Advanced Search" to limit to Creative Commons content.
  • The Public Domain Review
    This resource curates collections of images, books, films and audio files that are available in the public domain. Browse by medium, epoch, theme, genre, or style.
  • Open Art Images
    A curated subset of images from Wikimedia Commons focused on art. Browse by time period, style, artist, or subject.
  • Digital Public Library of America *Best Bet*
    The DPLA makes millions of materials from libraries, archives, and museums across the U.S. available in a single search box. Although content includes more than just images, you can filter results by type. You can also filter by copyright status to find images that are licensed for reuse.
  • Artstor Public Collections
    Artstor’s Public Collections offer approximately 1.3 million freely accessible images, videos, documents, and audio files from library special collections, faculty research, institutional history materials, and partner museums. While most images are open, not all of them are, so be sure to check the rights statement on the individual image.
  • Biodiversity Heritage Library on Flickr
    Openly licensed images from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Search by subject or specific species.
  • British Library on Flickr
    This is a collection of public domain resources from the British Library's collection. The albums included on this page are a great resource for inspiration and reuse.
  • Library of Congress: Free to Use and Reuse Sets
    A subset of the Library of Congress’s digital collections. Each image “set” is based on a theme and the content is free to use and reuse.
  • Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online
    Images representing a rich cross-section of still pictures held by the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, now in the public domain.
  • New York Public Library Public Domain Collections
    Access more than 180,000 of the public domain items in the NYPL Digital Collections. Explore materials by time period, genre, collection, or color.
  • Smithsonian Open Access
    Smithsonian Open Access allows you to download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images. Content includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.
  • Museo *Best Bet*
    A cross-collection visual search engine that connects you with open images from the Art Institute of Chicago, the Rijksmuseum, the Harvard Art Museums, the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the New York Public Library Digital Collection.
  • Art Institute of Chicago Open Access
    The Art Institute of Chicago offers free, unrestricted use of over 50,000 images of works in their collection believed to be in the public domain.
  • Artstor Public Collections
    Artstor’s Public Collections offer approximately 1.3 million freely accessible images, videos, documents, and audio files from library special collections, faculty research, institutional history materials, and partner museums. While most images are open, not all of them are, so be sure to check the rights statement on the individual image.
  • Cleveland Art Museum
    The Cleveland Art Museum has made thousands of images of public domain artwork available on their website for use and reuse.
  • Getty Open Content
    The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose. No permission is required.
  • The Met Open Access Collection
    The Met made all images of public-domain works in its collection available, of which there are more than 406,000 images.
  • National Gallery of Art Open Access Collection
    The National Gallery of Art has made over 50,000 images of works of art believed to be in the public domain available for any use.
  • Smithsonian Open Access
    Smithsonian Open Access allows you to download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images. Content includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.

Most images and other creative works created by the U.S. Government are part of the Public Domain (with a few exceptions).

Stock Photography

Icons and Graphics

Finding Audio that Is Licensed to Use

  • MusOpen
    Provides openly licensed and public domain music recordings that you can download and include in your projects. Allows you to browse by composer, performer, instrument, tag, form, or time period.
  • Open Music Archive
    Open Music Archive is a collaborative project to source, digitize and distribute out-of-copyright sound recordings.
  • International Music Score Library Project
    While the primary goal of IMSLP is to share public domain music scores, the site also includes a library of performance recordings. You can browse the recordings by title, composer, or performer name.
  • Public Domain Review
    This resource curates collections of images, books, films and audio files that are available in the public domain. Browse by medium, epoch, theme, genre, or style.  
  • Free Music Archive
    Offers free access to open licensed, original music. Browse by genre, curator, or charts.

Stock Music

Sounds

Finding Video that Is Licensed to use

  • National Screening Room
    The National Screening Room showcases the riches of the Library of Congress's vast moving image collection, designed to make otherwise unavailable movies, both copyrighted and in the public domain, accessible to the viewers worldwide. The majority of titles in the National Screening Room are freely available as both 5 mb MP4 and ProRes 422 MOV/Quicktime downloads.
  • Internet Archive Moving Image 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.
  • Prelinger Archive
    View and download thousands of public domain films from the Prelinger Archives! The archive holds approximately 11,000 digitized and videotape titles and a large collection of home movies, amateur and industrial films. The primary collection emphasis has turned toward home movies and amateur films, with approximately 18,000 items held as of Spring 2021.
  • Public Domain Review
    This resource curates collections of images, books, films and audio files that are available in the public domain. Browse by medium, epoch, theme, genre, or style.
  • YouTube Creative Commons
    When you search for any video clip on YouTube, you have the option to filter your results to videos with Creative Commons licenses only.