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Finding and Using Free-Use Online Content

Looking for free images, sound, music or video to use in your PowerPoint, e-Learning video or other digital projects? Curated here is a list of databases containing free content. Check the license terms before use.

Websites and Web Pages

Google Advanced Search 

Find creative commons licensed: 

  • Website Content
  • Articles 
  • e-Books

Step 1: Type in your keywords e.g. Find Pages With > "Toxicology" 

Step 2: Narrow your results by Usage Rights > "Free to Use..." to find Creative Commons licensed materials

Screenshot from Google Advanced Search permissible under Google Search Guidelines

Step 3: Double-check the license! Just because Google has indexed content as free to use, doesn't mean the entire is license. Always verify that the specific image, video or text you wish to re-use is licensed under an open license.

Example

Article license CC-BY found using above Toxicology search https://enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s12302-017-0115-z License below: 

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Crawford, S. E., Hartung, T., Hollert, H., Mathes, B., van Ravenzwaay, B., Steger-Hartmann, T., Studer, C., & Krug, H. F. (2017). Green Toxicology: A strategy for sustainable chemical and material development. Environmental Sciences Europe, 29(1), 16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-017-0115-z

Measures

Hays, Ron D., et al. “Commentary: Copyright Restrictions Versus Open Access to Survey Instruments.” Medical Care, vol. 56, no. 2, Feb. 2018, p. 107. journals.lww.com, https://doi.org/10.1097/MLR.0000000000000857.