Creative Commons Toolkit

Overview

What is Creative Commons?

A Creative Commons license allows creators to place conditions on their copyrights. This gives flexibility by allowing the creator (copyright holder) the ability to to grant some of their rights to the public while retaining other rights.

See also:

How Can I Use Creative Commons?

For "one-stop shopping" for images, audio, video, and text, try the Creative Commons CC Search.

Examples of Creative Commons license options:

Four types of Creative Common licenses: attribution, noncommercial, no derivative works, and share-alike.

What is Public Domain?

Works without copyright protection are included in the public domain and are available for everyone to use freely.

See also:

How do Works Enter the Public Domain?

  • The copyright has expired.
  • Facts and other non-protected work are in the public domain (i.e., the phone book).
  • It is a United States government work (i.e., statutes, reports, court rulings and studies).
  • They are published before certain dates.

What is OER?

Open educational resources (OER) are free and openly licensed educational materials that can be used for teaching, learning, research, and other purposes. See also: Open Educational Resources (OER).

  • Wikimedia Commons
    Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to everyone. The Wikimedia Commons database itself and the works in it are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike License.

  • flickr Creative Commons
    Many flickr users have chosen to offer their work under a Creative Commons license, and you can browse or search through content under each type of license (attribution, noncommercial, no derivative works, and share alike licenses).

  • Open Clip Art Library
    This project aims to create an archive of clip art that can be used for free for any use.

  • PhotoEverywhere
    Photoeverywhere currently has more than 3000 images online ready for instant, free download. Many of the images here are exclusive to this site. All images have been made available free of charge under a creative commons license.

  • FreePhotoBank
    FreePhotoBank is a stock photo site providing free high quality pictures. Those pictures may be used both for personal or commercial use. All pictures of FreePhotoBank have a Creative Commons Attribution alone license.

  • NOAA Photo Library
    Most photos and slides in the NOAA Photo Library are in the public domain and cannot be copyrighted, and there is no fee. Educational use is encouraged.

  • NASA Image Gallery
    NASA Image Gallery, a non-profit digital library, brings public access to NASA's image, video, and audio collections in a single, searchable resource. In general, content is not under copyright and can be used without express permission, as long as the use does not somehow imply that NASA endorses a product or cause.

  • Free Images
    Free Images provides access to hundreds of thousands (around 400,000 photos online) of high-quality, hand-picked stock photos and graphics; all free!

  • USDA Image Gallery
    USDA's Online Photo Center provides more than 20,000 high-quality digital images, and it continues to expand. All of the photographic images are USDA property and, consequently, are in the public domain.

  • US Fish and Wildlife Service National Digital Library
    The National Digital Library has a wide assortment of selected images, publications, video and audio clips that are in the public domain. They are free to use; no permission is necessary. They do ask that you give credit to the photographer or creator and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

  • New York Public Library
    The Digital Gallery provides free and open access to over 700,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more.

  • Public Domain Images
    Public domain images, royalty free stock photos, copyright-friendly free images. Not copyrighted, no rights reserved. All pictures on this site are explicitly placed in the public domain, free for any personal or commercial use.

  • National Park Service Digital Image Archives
    The Digital Image Archives provide links to public domain digital images from many of the National Park Service sites, including national parks, monuments, battlefields, and historic sites. All images are free, and may be used without a copyright release, but must not be used to imply NPS endorsement without permission.

  • Public Domain Pictures
    Public Domain Pictures is a repository for free public domain photos. You can download high quality photos, upload your own pictures, earn money for charity, get exposure and gain popularity, and improve your photographic and graphic skills.

  • Hubble Telescope Gallery
    Material credited to STScI on this site was created, authored, and/or prepared for NASA under Contract NAS5-26555. Unless otherwise specifically stated, no claim to copyright is being asserted by STScI and it may be freely used as in the public domain in accordance with NASA's contract.

  • Library of Congress
    Library of Congress collections include photographs, fine and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings. While international in scope, the collections are rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, the United States and the lives, interests and achievements of the American people.

  • Pixabay
    Pixabay is an international website for sharing photos in the public domain, and includes over 750,000 free images.

  • Unsplash
    Unsplash has high quality free images and photos you can download and use for any project, commercial or noncommercial. All Unsplash photos are open and no attribution is required.

  • Noun Project
    The Noun Project offers free photos for download and over 5 million icons created by designers from 120+ countries. These icons and photos are available in the Public Domain and under the Creative Common (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) or royalty-free license.

Open Image Search

  • YouTube
    YouTube allows you to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe.

  • Internet Archive
    This library contains thousands of 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.

  • Open Culture
    Open Culture brings together high-quality cultural & educational media for the worldwide lifelong learning community. Their mission is to centralize this content, curate it, and provide access to this high quality content whenever and wherever you want it. Free audio books, free online courses, free movies, free language lessons, free ebooks.

  • MoviesFoundOnline.com
    The movies and documentaries listed on this page have been verified to be in public domain or otherwise free for you to watch and download.

Open Video Search

  • Khan Academy
    Khan Academy offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom.

  • TED Talks
    TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). Viewers are able to freely view and download the videos.

  • Vimeo
    Like YouTube, Vimeo hosts millions of Creative Commons-licensed videos. In addition, Vimeo provides a separate Creative Commons licensed video collection which makes the filtering process much easier.

  • Achieving the Dream Catalog
    Openly-licensed course materials developed for the Open Educational Resources Degree Initiative from many institutions.

  • JHSPH Open
    110 full course packages including syllabus, readings, and assignments relating to health and medical areas.

  • MERLOT II
    Over 40,000 materials in 20 different categories.

  • MIT OpenCourseWare
    Open educational resources from over 2500 MIT courses.

  • MyOpenMath
    Pre-built course materials for math learners including homework, quizzes, and assessments.

  • OER Commons
    Over 42,000 vetted and fully-indexed open educational resources.

  • Open Course Library
    Collection of high quality, free-to-use courses stored in Google docs for easy access and downloading.

  • Open Education Consortium
    Site which searches available open educational materials and provides users with the links.

  • OpenLearn
    1000+ short courses, articles, activities, videos, and audios available for free to learn about a large variety of new topics.

  • Open Learning Initiative
    The site makes suggestions catered to individual learners based on data collected through embedded assessments.

  • Open Michigan
    Open Educational Resources including course materials, videos, lectures, and student work from the University of Michigan.

  • Open Yale Courses
    Video lectures and other course material from 42 renowned courses taught at Yale.

  • PhET
    Interactive simulations, language translations, and teacher-submitted lessons under the STEM content areas.

  • PSU ROAM
    Educational resources free for educators and learners to download, remix, download, translate, localize, and adapt for their own purposes.

  • Saylor Academy
    317 unified courses and 100 open textbooks that are organized and easy to download. Learners can enroll in courses and track their own progress.

  • WAMAP
    A web-based mathematics assessment and course management platform free to users from WA State public educational institutions.

  • webcast.berkeley
    Hundreds of video/audio recordings of class lectures and special events.

  • American Institute of Mathematics
    A list of textbooks approved by the AIM for use in traditional university math courses.

  • BC Campus
    Curated collection of open textbooks that align with the 40 highest enrolled post-secondary subject areas in British Columbia.

  • Digital Public Library of America
    Highlights of collections from libraries, archives and museums across the United States, organized into easy-to-navigate topics.

  • Google Books
    Search the latest index of the world's books. Find millions of great books you can preview or read for free.

  • IntraText
    Full-text digital library offering books and corpora as lexical hypertexts on Creative Commons License. IntraText is committed to accuracy, accessibility and touch-oriented cognitive ergonomics.

  • JSTOR
    Open access to journals, ebooks, reports, images, and media.

  • LibreTexts
    A comprehensive library of 154 courses and 398 textbooks, textmaps, and LibreTexts accessible to everyone for free.

  • LibriVox
    LibriVox records only texts that are in the public domain and all recordings are public domain. This means anyone can use all the recordings however they wish (even to sell them). In addition, book summaries, CD cover art, and any other material that goes into the catalog with the audio recordings are in the public domain.

  • Milne Open Textbooks
    A catalog of open textbooks authored and peer-reviewed by SUNY faculty and staff.

  • Online Books Page
    The Online Books Page at University of Pennsylvania is a catalog of freely readable online books, listing over 1 million books on the Web.

  • OpenBook Publishers
    A collection of peer-reviewed textbooks available for free in PDF and HTML formats.

  • Open Library
    Open Library's goal is to have "one web page for every book ever published." It is a completely open wiki interface allowing for contributions by anyone.

  • OpenStax College
    Possibly the most widely adopted open textbook repository for higher education available for free.

  • Open Textbook Library
    Over 700 open textbooks from various disciplines currently in use at universities and colleges.

  • Open TextBook Store
    Open TextBook Store provides freely and openly available math textbooks created by Washington CTC faculty. They can be downloaded for free or printed for a low cost.

  • PDXScholar
    A collection of open access textbooks and open educational resources created by Portland State University.

  • Project Gutenberg
    Project Gutenberg is the place where you can download over 33,000 free ebooks to read on your PC, iPad, Kindle, Sony Reader, iPhone, Android or other portable device.

  • Project Muse
    Open access books and journals from distinguished universities available for free.

  • Washington 45
    A list of open textbooks and materials used in courses selected from general higher-education categories

  • Wikibooks
    An open-content textbooks collection that anyone can add to or edit with over 3,000 books.