Still Images | Music | Video | Copyright Resources
The media collections below may be used for class projects and other educational purposes. Though most have lenient usage policies, make sure to read all copyright restrictions and cite the media properly. If you have questions, feel free to ask the DMS staff or a librarian for help.
Still Images
Encyclopedia Brittanica Images - Image Quest Images from 43 of the best collections: Corbis, Dorling Kindersley Images, Getty Images, the National Portrait Gallery of London, the National Geographic Society, Oxford Scientific and more! Currently Over 2,000,000 Images with plans to add many more! Must access through Library website. Need pipeline ID and password for off campus access.
ARTstor More than one million digital images in the arts, architecture, human ties and science. For academic use only. Must access through Library website. Need pipeline ID and password for off campus access.
Berg Fashion Library The Berg Fashion Library is the authority on world dress. This database offers a unique portal to an expanding range of Berg content including Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion online, e-books, reference works, images and more.
Pics.4learning.com Categories of pictures submitted by a committee of users for education use.
MTSU James E. Walker Library Digital Collections Includes the MTSU Memory Project, the James M. Buchanan Family Collection, the Cannon County, Tennessee Collection, the Stones River Battlefield Historic Landscape Project, and the Cedar Glades Studies Collection. All images are available for educational and non-commercial use, but view rights and/or terms of conditions statements for each image to determine attribution.
New York Public Library The Digital Gallery provides free and open access to over 700,000 images digitized from The New York Public Library's vast collections. Some of the images in the Digital Gallery may be subject to third party rights such as copyright and/or rights of privacy/publicity. Before using any of these images please review the Library's Terms and Conditions.
Smithsonian Images Treasure trove of amazing images, downloadable for educational use. Covers hundreds of categories.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Digital Library Free to use as you wish as long as you credit the photographer.
Yale Digital Images Database Contains digital reproductions of photographs, posters, drawings, text documents, and other images taken from the research collections of Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.
U.S. Government Photos and Images Most of these images and graphics are available for use in the public domain, and they may be used and reproduced without permission or fee. However, some images may be protected by license. We strongly recommend you thoroughly read the disclaimers on each site before use.
CreativeCommons.org A repository for licensed image, movies and more that you can freely use. Read more about creative commons (and licensing your own stuff). The website takes you to a search engine that seeks out web based repositories of images.
Wikimedia Commons A volunteer database of freely usable media.
Media Commons at Penn State A huge list of resources!
Images from WorldCat Find images from the Catalog of Art Museum Images Online, OAIster, and ArchiveGrid. After searching by keyword, use the menu on the left to limit to images from these collections. The images are licensed for non-commercial educational use.
Texturez.com Freely available textures and backgrounds in high quality formats. Search by theme.
stock.xchng Free stock photography site. View image licenses for restrictions.
Flickr Commons Access through Flickr, the photo sharing site, to publicly-held photo collections. Many have "no known copyright restrictions," but take note of exceptions.
Life Photo Gallery You can link to the image but make sure you hit the license button to give proper citation. If you want to use the image outright, double check that it is allowed, or check if permission can be granted. If not, you may not copy it, even if you cite it.
Copyright Free Photos Photos made available for any application. Lots of ads, so it is easy to navigate offsite.
Open Clip Art Archive of clip art that has been submitted into the Public Domain.
FreeStockPhotos Nearly 100% of their Royalty Free photos are Free Download.
Free Pixels Offers free high resolution stock photos for use in both personal and commercial design projects.
4 Free Photos The website is an online community of photographers who enjoy taking pictures and decided to share them with the public to use them for free in their private or commercial projects. They hope you will find the collection of free and public domain images useful.
Free Digital Photos Download royalty free photos and illustrations for websites, newspapers, magazines, video and TV productions, iPhone applications, PowerPoint presentations, forums, blogs and school work.
Morgue File An easy to use free photo site. Free images for your inspiration, reference and use in your creative work, be it commercial or not!
Turbo Photo Stock images are in the public domain.
Image*After A large online free photo collection. You can download and use any image or texture from our site and use it in your own work, either personal or commercial.
Public-Domain-Photos 5,000 free photos, 8,000 free cliparts. All photos on this web site are public domain. You may use these images for any purpose, including commercial.
USAID This growing collection of photos taken by USAID staff and development partners reflects some of the many facets of USAID's work in Africa. These photos may be used for non-commercial and educational purposes only. To use a photo, you must include proper attribution to USAID and the photographer's name, if listed.
Animal Photos Thousands of animal pictures, free to use under creative commons.
Ancestryimages.com 23,000 images (as of August 2011) of old and antique prints, maps and portraits, dating from the 17th century but mostly from the later 18th century and 19th century.
Nasa Gallery Images, 3D models and videos of space, space program and related topics. Also includes pictures of Earth from space.
Absolute Background Textures Library Background textures and images for use in web pages.
Pirate Images Images of all things pirate. arrgh.
Astronomy Picture of the Day A new picture each day from professional astronomers.
Associate Press Images- royalty free A decent selection of stock photos in a variety of categories like lifestyle, family, nature, and food. Must cite.
Music
cc Mixter Royalty-free music published under a Creative Commons license. From the site: "You are free to download and sample from music on this site and share the results with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Some songs might have certain restrictions, depending on their specific licenses. Each submission is marked clearly with the license that applies to it."
Freesound "The Freesound Project is a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds. Freesound focusses only on sound, not songs."
Incompetech royalty free music. Free to use but the artist does ask for a donation.
Royalty Free Music for education Loops, musics, sound effects and more for use in educational films or presentations.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Online Video Sound clips and video authorized for classroom use. No streaming without citation, and in some cases permission.
Vimeo Free Stock Footage Free footage submitted by community members.
BBC Motion Gallery High end video footage, royalty free. From BBC, CBS and other new channels. NOT free.
Internet Archives Moving Images Collection High-quality downloadable movie data files with liberal use restrictions. Most, but not all, may be downloaded for reuse.
WGBH Sandbox Archived Video Clips from WGBH Television. "The Sandbox is the Lab's way of sharing high-quality video clips with you – for free. Use our clips to make a mash-up, documentary, music video, or whatever!"
Public Domain Flicks Movies that have entered into the Public Domain, these films can be downloaded, modified, & remixed freely.
Movietools.info Free Video Background Animation Loops, Lower Third Animations and Motion Objects for PC only.
Footagecrate.com Free footage for you to download.
StockFootageForFree.com Free stock footage and video.
Neo's Clip Archive Video Preview and download links for over 3000 free particle illusion, motion graphics and background clips.
Motionloops.com Videoloops free for download.
Open Video. org More than 5000 free videofiles in different genres.
Detonation Films Free stock footage of explosions and things getting blown up.
What is Fair Use?
ALA Fair Use Checklist
Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines for Teachers and Students Gives good guidelines for how to use video, music and images for academic presentations
Clearance Copyright Center
ALA Fair Use 101
Code of Best Practices for Fair Use in Online Video
Documentary Filmmakers Best Practices for Fair Use
Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia
