LibGuides: Creative Commons: Using CC Images

Rights-Free or Rights-Implied Image Repositories

Where to find Creative Commons, Public Domain, and other "rights free" or "rights-implied" images.

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, in their own language.
Flickr Commons
A collection of public domain and other copyright-restriction-free photos contributed by partnering cultural institutions located throughout the world.
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.
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive provides free access to millions of digitized books, texts, audio recordings, videos, and software programs from around the world. This Search guide on their website explains how to find items that are licensed as public domain or Creative Commons, and provides links that activate each search query.
Smithsonian Open Access
The Smithsonian provides open access to more than 2.8 million images, videos, and other digital assets from its collections, which have been released into the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. Select the Open Access Media checkbox under the Search box to filter on those collections.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Open Access Collections
The Met in New York City provides open access under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) to more than 375,000 images of artworks from our collection to use, share, and remix—without restriction.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Nearly 20,000 high-quality images of art from their collection have been released into the public domain and are available to download and use as you see fit (that’s about a quarter of all the art represented on the site). Just look for the “download” option beneath the photo of the artwork.
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If you want to see all of the public domain artworks in the collection, run a search and then select “Show only unrestricted images” at the top of the page.
Pixabay
Pixabay is a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images and videos. All contents are released under Creative Commons CC0, which makes them safe to use without asking for permission or giving credit to the artist - even for commercial purposes.
Open Clip Art Library
Online repository for high quality public domain vector graphics on the Internet. All graphics submitted to the project should be waived of all rights, including copyright, according to the CC0 Public Domain Dedication.
Creative Commons Image Search Tool
This Creative Commons tool searches across more than 300 million images that are openly licensed Creative Commons and public domain works.

How To Find Creative Commons Images on Flickr

Although geared towards finding images for use in Blackboard, this tutorial provides a good general overview on how to search for CC images in Flickr, and how to note the specific CC license and terms associated with a particular image.

How to Find Reusable Images on Google Image Search

Although a bit long, this tutorial does a good job demonstrating how to find reusable images using the advanced search feature of Google Image Search. Please note that you still have to evaluabe each image individually to verify the appropriate license. Get more information.

Creative Commons

Digital Literacy Librarian

Rights-Free or Rights-Implied Image Repositories

How To Find Creative Commons Images on Flickr

How to Find Reusable Images on Google Image Search

Web Accessibility