Find free content for reuse
It is possible to find free and open content online that you can re-use for your research, learning and teaching. Even if the content is free to use, you should still make sure you credit the creator and the source in addition to any licensing terms and conditions. Below is a brief listing of websites available that can help you.
Recommended sites
We recommend the following sites:
- Google: Filter your searches for content licensed for re-use, go to Google Advanced Search, put your search terms in the boxes at the top, then scroll down to "usage rights", select the type of licence under which you would like to find materials and click "Advanced search"
- OpenDOAR: Search the content made available in Open Access repositories
- Creative Commons: Search a number of websites for material licensed under Creative Commons
- Xpert: Search across several online sources of open content and add the name of the creator and the source to the file you download
- Public Domain Review: Curated collections of images, audio, books and film
- Internet Archive: Library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, and more
- Open Culture: Links to open online courses, audio, video and books
- Europeana: access to millions of books, music, artworks and more from European museums, libraries and archives
- British Library Collections: access to audio, images, manuscripts and theses. The British Library have also made over one million images available for re-use on Flickr which can also be view on their British Library Flickr page
- New York Public Library Digital Collections: close to 1 million digitised items from collections including prints, manuscripts, maps, video and more
- Wellcome Collections: thousands of freely licensed digital books, artworks, photos and images of historical library materials and museum objects from the Wellcome Collection
Books and journals
- JSTOR: Open access and public domain books and journals
- Hathi Trust: Access to 17+ million digitised items (books and journals)
Images
- Flickr: Search and browse for content available under Creative Commons licences. You can also perform a search, then narrow your results to display only those images available under a specific licence
- You can also search under the Flickr Commons project, where cultural institutions make photographs with no known copyright restrictions available
- The Noun Project: Find images and icons available free for use as long as the creator and source are credited.
- Pexels: Stock photos and videos freely available without any restrictions on use
- Getty Museum: images from the collections at the Getty Museum available for re-use
- Artstor: 1.3 million images available for re-use
- Library of Congress: A collection of material from the collections that is free to use and reuse
- Smithsonian Open Access: Millions of images that are free to use and reuse including 2D and 3D items
Audio
- Free Music Archive: Music for free under different licences, including Creative Commons.
- dig.ccmixter: Search for music and A capellas available for download and remixing under Creative Commons licences
- Jamendo: Music available under Creative Commons licences
- mobygratis.com: Music by Moby made available for inclusion in non-commercial films
Video
- Videvo: Free-to-use stock video, motion graphics and audio, under various licences with appropriate attribution
- Vimeo: Browse content available under the Creative Commons licences
- British Film Institute – BFI: thousands of titles digitised from the archive and available for streaming
Teaching materials
- Jisc Store: Includes freely available educational apps and resources
- OER Commons: Worldwide collection of open educational resources.