Do you need a free image/video/sound clip to enhance an
assignment? Although media is available online this does not mean it is
free to use. Copyright regulations apply
to online media. This means you have to either pay a fee to or request
permission from the creator to incorporate the material into your work. To keep
things legal, be sure to use copyright-free/copyright-friendly media. To help you with your assignments the
library has made a list of copyright-free/copyright-friendly media.
Note: Even if you don’t have to pay for the media you use,
you still have to credit the creator in your assignment. For more
information on how to cite materials see EasyBib
or KnightCite.
All Media
A database of over 28,000,000 freely usable media files to
which anyone can contribute.
Images
Animation Library
– This site features over 13,748 free animations for you to use.
Bigfoto – All of these
photographs can be used for free. When you use images you must make reference
to the bigfoto website. For example: Photo(s) by courtesy of www.bigfoto.com.
Clipart for
Students, Geography Clipart – Any clip art featured on the site may be used
on any web site, intranet site or within a document or publication.
Discovery
Education Clip Art Gallery – Any use of clip art images must credit
Discoveryschool.com and include a link to the Discoveryschool.com Web site.
Credit must read - "Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on
DiscoverySchool.com."
EBSCO – Images
can be used in research papers. Just make sure you include the proper citation.
Flickr – The
Commons – a project wherein cultural institutions (libraries,
archives, museums) make photographs with no copyright restrictions freely
available online. Participants include several Canadian institutions.
This site offers images that are free for on-line use. Also
non-commercial users may download web size images to use off-line in school
projects.
Free Pixels – Images
and digital creations downloaded from this website may be used for both
personal and commercial purposes. However, you may not share an image or
digital creation by providing access on shared disk drives or network, resell
any image or digital creation, use any image or digital creation as part of a
trademark or patent image, use any image or digital creation as part of a logo,
produce printed reproductions of any image or digital creation on canvas or
paper to be sold, or use or display any image or digital creation on websites
designed to induce sales.
The Images
Project – a web-based collection of student and teacher created
curriculum images for Nova Scotia public school program use.
MourgeFile – MorgueFile
contains free high resolution digital stock photography for either corporate or
public use.
Open Clipart – a
collection of original, royalty free clipart, images, graphics, templates
and icons. Unless noted, content on this site is waived of all copyright and
related or neighboring rights under the CC0 PD Dedication.
PD Photo – Free Photos and
Pictures
PDPhoto.org is a repository for free public domain photos.
Not to be used for commercial purposes.
Photogen – Photogen
provides free, quality stock photography for both commercial and personal use.
The aim is to create a valuable resource for designers, graphic artists,
bloggers or anyone who needs a photo or image to enhance their website,
presentation, homework or print job. While they’re free to use in your work,
our photos are not for resale or redistribution and you should read our terms
of use before downloading.
Pics4Learning – a
safe, free image library for education. Teachers and students can use the copyright-friendly photos
& images for classrooms, multimedia projects, websites, videos, portfolios,
or any projects in an educational setting.
Pixabay –
you can freely use any image from this website in digital and printed
format, for personal and commercial use.
Smithsonian
Photographic Services – Fair use of copyrighted material includes the use
of protected materials for non-commercial educational purposes, such as teaching,
scholarship, research, criticism, commentary, and news reporting. Unless
otherwise noted, users who wish to download or print text and image files from
this Web site for such uses may do so without the Smithsonian Institution’s
express permission. The citation must include all copyright information and
other information associated with the content and the URL for the Smithsonian
Institution website.
Stockvault – Free
Stock Photos & Images for personal, educational and non-commercial usage.
U.S.
Government Photos and Graphics – The United State Government is millions of
photographs available for use by the general public. These photos are generally
royalty free. Many units of the government have made collections of photographs
available online. The list below is a selection of US Government Websites of
particular interest.
Visual Geography Series
– An extension of Lerner Publishing Group's series of Visual Geography books,
this site provides a great resource for links to country-specific information,
up-to-date statistics, photographs and maps students can download into their
reports.
Music/Sound
ccMixter – a
community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons where you can
listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want.
Videos
You Tube – When you do a YouTube search, a “Filter” button will appear under the search bar. Click on it, select “Creative Commons,” and your search results will be limited to videos you can use for free.