Flrdorothy's List: Sourcing worry-free media content

Need demographic data? US Census data is uncopyrightable, meaning that it can be freely used but cannot be copyrighted.

Stanford University Libraries' primer on the Public Domain. How works become public domain, how to interpret terms like shareware, freeware, and "copyright free," examples and Q&A.

Note that this page is part of a much broader online guide to copyright in the US.

Do you have questions about the public domain works that aren't covered by this page?

Stanford University Libraries' primer on detetermining whether use of a copyrighted work qualifies as fair use. Four factors used to make the legal distinction, whether credits and disclaimers help your case, and examples.

Note that this page is part of a much broader online guide to copyright in the US.

Do you have questions about the public domain works that aren't covered by this page?

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) lays out its guidelines on using their images and text, most of which are public domain.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s photo library. High quality photos of landscapes, fisheries, weather, technology and wildlife-public domain unless marked as copyrighted.

Find high resolution royalty-free images, editorial stock photos, vector art, video footage clips and stock music licensing at the richest image search photo library online.

This is a "most rights reserved" situation where you pay for use. Most stock and royalty free images cost a flat fee to purchase rights for limited usage.

CNN article about Getty's move to make many of their copyrighted holdings available for free online use.

Was this a wise move, or a battle lost?

Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library offering free universal access to books, movies & music, as well as 407 billion archived web pages.

Much of this material is in the public domain! Again, use due diligence and doublecheck what you find here.

Soundcloud.com is a site where people can post, trade, hear and download audio files. The search function on soundcloud lets you specify what you want to do with a file--many files are released for others to edit and reuse in different ways..

Here's a sample search on soundcloud for clips with "interview" in the title, which have a "license to modify commercially."

CHECK UP on copyright information on soundcloud as those tags are only as good as an uploader's word.

Google Earth, Google Maps, their rights to the images and yours