Quick Reference Guide to Finding Creative Commons Material

Updated 4 August 2022

http://www.creativecommons.org – CC international site
http://creativecommons.org.au/ – CC Australia site
http://icommons.asbindia.org/ – iCommons – CC-founded open source community
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Content_Curators – List of sites which host CC-licensed material.

These sites have material which is searchable by how they can be used, including whether they are under a Creative Commons licence:

http://wordpress.org/openverse – Openverse search engine hosted on WordPress (formerly CC Search)
http://www.google.com.au/advanced_search – Google advanced-search allows you to search for material based on its “usage rights”
http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/– allows you to search the Flickr photo archive for CC material.

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Books – CC wiki listing notable CC licensed books
http://freewords.org/freepress/ – an artistic project which releases an eclectic mix of writing under CC licensing
http://www.austlii.edu.au/ – collection of Australian state and federal legislation, case law and journals. AustLII participates in the free access to law movement
http://doaj.org – an online directory that indexes and provides access to quality open access, peer- reviewed journals
http://www.thecommonsjournal.org/index.php/ijc – an open access journal
http://ck12.org – creates and aggregates high quality curated Science, Technology, Engineering and Math content
http://en.wikibooks.org – an open-content textbooks collection.

Images

http://www.geograph.org.uk/ – photographs of the British Isles all under CC licences
http://openphoto.net/ – a moderated photo community with over 3000 CC licensed photos in various categories
http://wellcomeimages.org/ – a collection of openly licensed images from topics ranging from medicine and magic to science
http://openstreetmaps.org – a map of the world built by a community of mappers that contribute and maintain the source data
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Maps_of_the_world – collection of maps contained within the Wikimedia Commons repository
http://pixabay.com – a site where you can discover and share images free of all copyrights. All pictures are published under Creative Commons public domain deed CC0
http://europeana.eu/portal – a portal that allows you to view materials from a range of Europe’s leading galleries, libraries, archives and museums
http://eol.org – a site that gathers knowledge about all of Earth’s life forms and makes it available to everyone, anywhere
http://plos.org – The Public Library of Science site aims to provide more open access to research materials
http://scienceimage.csiro.au – the CSIRO’s collection of CC licensed images.

Sound

https://filmmusic.io/ – all the music on this website can be used for free, even commercially and anywhere. The only thing you need to do is to make attribution and give appropriate credit.
http://ccmixter.org – CC sound remix tool and archive
http://jamendo.com – CC music distribution site
http://cchits.net/ – collaborative podcast where users can contribute, find, and share music under CC licences
http://soundcloud.com/creativecommons – an interactive community that shares various music and sounds under CC licenses.

Video

https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Films – CC wiki listing notable CC licensed films
http://elephantsdream.org – Elephants Dream, open source film
http://www.oddjobjack.com/freejack.php – Master flash files and bitmaps of every piece of art used in the Odd Job Jack cartoon, available under a CC licence
http://vimeo.com/creativecommons – CC licensed videos available on Vimeo
http://ted.com – A collection of CC licensed short talks on topics from all disciplines and across all cultures.

Education

http://www.curriki.org/– Curriki offers world-class learning materials freely available to educators, students, and parents around the world
http://oercommons.org – a dynamic digital hub offering OER support including materials tools and training
http://cnx.org – provides an open space where authors and learners can share and freely adapt educational materials such as courses, books and reports
http://wikieducator.org/Main_Page – an evolving community based platform intended to facilitate collaborative learning
http://www.saylor.org – provides online tuition free courses
http://en.wikiversity.org– a project dedicated to learning resources, learning projects and research for use in all levels from pre-school to university
http://www.livebinders.com/play/play/117659#anchor – provides learning resources for years K-12
http://khanacademy.org – a website that provides free world-class education for anyone, anywhere
http://p2pu.org/en – a community based and driven site that provides free courses on a range of topics
http://www.scootle.edu.au/ec/p/creativeCommons – educational learning objects and digital resources made available under a CC License from Education Services Australia
http://mathispower4u.yolasite.com – the site provides free math lessons and exercises.

Collections

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html – provides free, searchable, access to MIT’s course materials for educators, students, and self-learners around the world
http://www.opendoar.org/ – a directory of open access academic repositories
http://www.overmundo.com.br/banco/banco.php – Overmundo Banco de Cultura – Brazilian multi-format CC archive (in Portuguese, but you can view the licences in English)
http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/ – the World Bank’s open knowledge repository.

Other

http://www.berkleeshares.com/ – provides music lessons in text, audio and video format under CC licence.

http://www.flickr.com – online photo album – CC licensed material can be accessed via the main site, or through a dedicated portal at http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons

Video

Other

http://www.archive.org/ – The Internet Archive is an internet library, hosting thousands of CC-licensed and Public Domain video, audio, and text items
http://secondlife.com – Second Life, a resident built virtual world, which allows open licensing for content created in the world
http://openclipart.org/ – Open Clip Art Library
http://www.lightandmatter.com/ – The Light and Matter series of introductory physics textbooks is available for free under a CC licence
http://trove.nla.gov.au – Trove helps you find resources relating to Australia. It brings together content from libraries, museums, archives and other research organisations.

Remember that all CC material you use must be attributed. For information on how to attribute CC material, see How to Attribute Creative Commons Material.