14. Where can I find copyright-free material?
All works that are in the public domain are out of copyright and free to re-use. You can find more information about public domain materials here. If a work is distributed under a Creative Commons licence, you can re-use it for free under the conditions set by the licence.
Copyright-free material can be difficult to find but luckily there are some archive services to help you out. Here are some suggestions:
Wikimedia Commons – Wikimedia Commons is a database of millions of freely usable media files, like images, sounds and videos.
The Prelinger Archives – The Prelinger Archives are a collection of movies that are believed to be in the public domain in the US. However, you need to bear in mind that copyright law is territorial, meaning that the fact that a work is in the public domain in the US does not necessarily mean that it is in the public domain in the UK as well. To find out how to know if a work is in the public domain in the UK, read more here.
Incompetech – Incompetech is a collection of songs produced by the American artist Kevin MacLeod and distributed under a Creative Commons licence. You can freely use all the songs originally produced by Kevin MacLeod under the only condition of crediting the author.
More resources can be found here.
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Links & Resources
Useful links to external websites.
Copyright Bites
Copyright Bites is a series of short videos that makes copyright law and policy easier to understand, exploring the relationship between copyright and the public domain.
Most of the original content on the Copyright User’s website is distributed under a CC-BY 3.0 licence, meaning that you can share, remix, alter, and build upon Copyright User content for any purpose, as long as you credit the author of the content. Where content on Copyright User is not distributed under a CC-BY 3.0 licence, this will be indicated clearly.