What is it?

Works in the "public domain" are not protected by copyright law. They may be used however you wish.

Still image from A Trip to the Moon, 1902

Where to Find Music & Sound Effects

"The vast majority of music that you're familiar with is subject to copyright. Artists want to protect their music and be sure that they're getting paid whenever it gets used. And rightfully so! They put in a lot of hard work to create some of your favorite songs."

- Free Music for Podcasts

909 Music
Mostly electronic music.
ccMixter
Creative Commons music from around the world, uploaded by the creators.
Free Music Archive
Variety of music with variable use restrictions.
Set Music Free
Mostly classical music.
SoundBible
Offers sound effects.
YouTube Audio Library
Free music and sound effects offered by YouTube. You must be signed in and in the YouTube Studio to access the sound clips.

How can I tell?

Determining if an item is in the public domain can be a complicated and lengthy process. The tools below will help you work through the details.

Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States
From the Cornell Library. This chart was first published in Peter B. Hirtle, "Recent Changes To The Copyright Law: Copyright Term Extension," Archival Outlook, January/February 1999. This
version is current as of 04 January 2022.

Copyright Term Calculator
A series of questions to help you discover if an item is still protected under U.S. copyright law

Find Royalty Free Images

Make sure your visualizations contain images that are free to use. The links below offer a number of royalty free images.

Artstor
"Artstor is the most extensive image resource for educational and scholarly use
We bring together media from the world’s museums, archives, scholars, and artists, with a specialized suite of tools for teaching and learning with visual materials — all rights-cleared for education and research."
Artstor Copyright Checkpoint
"Copyright Checkpoint is Artstor's new tool (currently in Beta) for evaluating the copyright status of different types of materials such as books, images, audio recordings, and more. You can use this tool with images that you would like to work with to understand if they are in the public domain or under copyright."
CTL's List of Image Links
Two and a half pages of links to sites of images, compiled by Centre College's Centre for Teaching and Learning.
Flickr
Online photo management and sharing application
Freepik
A platform of free graphic resources with a search engine that helps users find high-quality photos, vector images, illustrations and PSD files for their creative projects.
Google Images
When you search using Google Images, you may sort your results by usage rights. Click on the "tool" drop down menu and select "Usage Rights" then "Creative Commons Licenses" to find images available for use.
Library of Congress
Much of the Library of Congress digital collection is in the public domain. Each month they highlight a new collection that is free to use.
Smithsonian Open Access
Download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images.
Wikipedia Commons
A collection of free to use media files.
Unsplash
Unsplash is a source of freely usable images with over 3 million free high-resolution images from the world’s most generous community of photographers.

Other Sites:

Government Organizations (such as NASA, NOAA, CDC/Public Health Image Library, Department of Agriculture, etc.)

Museums

University Digital Repositories