\nThis post also has some overlap with fair use<\/a>, DMCA\/DRM<\/a>, and open access<\/a>, so check out those as well.<\/p>\n
Articles & guides<\/h2>\n
Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video<\/a> (June 2008), prepared by CMSI, offers guidelines to creators to make licensing and obtaining permissions clear for users.<\/p>\n Copyright, Creative Rights, and Comics: A Brief History<\/a> (March 2018), a presentation by comics blogger Johanna Draper Carlson.<\/p>\n Creativity Delusion: There Is No Genius<\/a> (February 2018) is a pointed video that breaks down the misleading notion that great ideas come suddenly and to only a select few. In other words, while there might be rare moments of inspiration, most works require much time, effort, and experimentation.<\/p>\n Everything is a Remix: Fair Use<\/a> (September 2017), a video by Kirby Ferguson, describes how you can reuse copyrighted material within the bounds of fair use \u2014 i.e., for the purpose of commentary, parody, or criticism.<\/p>\n Free Audio Books: Top 8 Websites<\/a>, from About.com \u2014 some are in the public domain, some are DRM-free.<\/p>\n How to dispute a copyright claim on YouTube<\/a> (J.L. Carlson, 6 November 2015) offers a step-by-step guide for when “YouTube erroneously thinks you don’t have rights to the music you’re using.”<\/p>\n Landmark release<\/a> (D. Peters, 11 October 2017) of the\u00a0Termination of Transfer tool<\/a> from Creative Commons and Authors Alliance lets creators \u2014 authors, artists, musicians, photographers, videographers, etc. \u2014 reclaim copyrights from publishers, studios, and so forth.<\/p>\n New Media Rights<\/a> is a non-profit project to educate both creators and Internet users on licensing. The offer the online Fair Use App<\/a> aimed specifically to guide filmmakers and video artists in understanding licensing, copyright, and fair usage.<\/p>\n Why DRM-free comic books are a big deal, even if you don\u2019t read comics<\/a> (A. Lawson, 3 July 2013), or “When publishers address piracy like rational human beings, we all win.”<\/p>\n Ithaca College Library<\/a> has a great guide to public domain works for audio, music, scores, images, film, and books.<\/p>\n University of Montana<\/a> also has an excellent pathfinder for public domain items for many media.<\/p>\n Audiobooks<\/strong>: LibriVox<\/a><\/p>\n Books<\/strong>: 39% of HathiTrust’s<\/a> content is under public domain; licensing state is noted under Viewability<\/em> in their catalog. Project Gutenberg<\/a> has one of the largest repositories of public domain ebooks, available in multiple formats, too. For persons with print disabilities<\/em>, Bookshare<\/a> and Learning Ally<\/a> offer ebooks, audiobooks, and Braille books.<\/p>\n Comics<\/strong>: Digital Comics Museum<\/a> and Comic Book Plus<\/a> offer many public domain Golden and Silver Age comics.<\/p>\n Film & video<\/strong>: Prelinger Archives<\/a><\/p>\n Images & photography<\/strong>: New York Times<\/a> Wikimedia collection; Smithsonian Institution<\/a><\/p>\n Sheet music<\/strong>: Public Domain Sherpa<\/a> lists many sources<\/p>\n Vector-based art<\/strong>, including SVG<\/strong> files:\u00a0Public Domain Vectors<\/a><\/p>\n Creative Commons Search<\/a>: Although not a search engine, this tool\u00a0offers a one-stop place to search for CC-licensed content, based on media and organization (Wikimedia, Google, YouTube, etc.).<\/p>\n dig.ccMixter<\/a> provides CC-licensed music<\/strong> to use in videos, games, and even commercials that you or your organization create.<\/p>\n Eezy.com provides repositories for both creators and users to upload and download CC-licensed works, respectively: Vecteezy<\/a> for vector art<\/strong>;\u00a0Brusheezy<\/a> for Photoshop brush styles<\/strong>;\u00a0Videezy<\/a> for high-definition stock footage<\/strong> and videos<\/strong>; and Themezy<\/a> for website and email templates<\/strong>, including WordPress themes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Free Music Archive<\/a> offers CC-licensed music<\/strong>, under the direction of public radio station WFMU<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Getty Museum<\/a> offers art books<\/strong> to download\u00a0for free, fair use by students, educators, and researchers.<\/p>\n The Google Cultural Institute<\/a>\u00a0has digital\u00a0collections<\/a>\u00a0whose images<\/strong> are\u00a0either copyright-free or copyright-cleared. You can virtually explore many well-known museums<\/strong><\/a>, world heritage sites<\/strong> with maps<\/a>, performing arts<\/strong>\u00a0pieces<\/a>, and more.<\/p>\n The venerable\u00a0Internet Archive<\/a> has many free items across media types, including text, images, audio, video, software, etc.<\/p>\n Museo<\/a> is a federated (multisite) search engine that finds images from museums<\/strong> around the world. Institutions include the Rijksmuseum, the Art Institute of Chicago, Harvard University’s Art Museums, the New York Public Library Digital Collection, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art \u2014 along with plans to add more museums.<\/p>\n The Noun Project<\/a> offers CC-licensed as well as public domain icons<\/strong> you can use.<\/p>\n Under the\u00a0Open Access for Scholarly Content (OASC) initiative, free digital access to much artwork<\/strong> is available from:<\/p>\n Open Culture<\/a> offers a vast array of free cultural (especially arts and humanities) resources for education and research.<\/p>\n Open Music Library<\/a> provides open access to journal articles, music scores, and books on music \u2014 developed by Alexander Street Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n Podiobooks<\/a> offers books as serialized, CC-licensed audiobooks<\/strong>, in a podcast-like manner.<\/p>\n Flickr<\/a> allows image searching by license type, as in the screenshot below:<\/p>\n Vimeo<\/a> allows filtering of video search results by license:<\/p>\n Similarly, Youtube<\/a> also allows filtering by CC license:<\/p>\n Audiobooks<\/strong>:\u00a0Downpour<\/a>\u00a0and My Audiobook Library<\/a>.<\/p>\n Comics<\/strong>:\u00a0ComiXology<\/a>, one of the largest digital comics vendors, offers some DRM-free titles.<\/p>\n Ebooks<\/strong>:\u00a0More and more publishers and online bookstores are offering DRM-free ebooks! Safari<\/a> tech books, Smashwords<\/a>, Book View Caf\u00e9<\/a>, Weightless Books<\/a>, even the Tor imprint of MacMillan, one of the Big 5 publishers. For a comprehensive listing, see Defective by Design’s Guide to DRM-free Living: Literature<\/a>, as well as Kevin Boynton’s list of DRM-free E-Bookshops (and comics vendors)<\/a>.<\/p>\n Music<\/strong>: Both Apple iTunes<\/a> and Amazon Digital Music<\/a> sell music without DRM. eMusic<\/a> offers DRM-free music as a subscription service.<\/p>\n The Open Access article has resources still applicable to transformative works (including remixes), such as Creative Commons<\/a>. However, as an alternative to CC,\u00a0the Copyleft Guide<\/a> discusses the background\u00a0and uses for their licensing, including the\u00a0history\u00a0the GNU General Public License (GPL).<\/p>\n Furthermore, there are many\u00a0free and open-source licenses<\/a>\u00a0to select from, especially with regards to software.<\/p>\n How to Publish an E-Book: Resources for Authors<\/a> (J. Friedman, 28 October 2015) offers resources for creating and distributing your own ebooks.<\/p>\n Let’s Get Digital: How to Self-Publish and Why You Should<\/em><\/a> (2nd edition, 2014) is website for David Gaughran’s eponymous book of self-publishing.<\/p>\n Maker spaces are becoming popular at libraries, as well as for research, education, and fun! Not all the resources will be 100% OA, public domain, or for free, but they are good places to start learning and searching \u2014 it’s a new area subject to dispute<\/a> (W. Oskay, 22 September 2015). Read the respective terms of use (copyright) for\u00a0hardware\/software makers, as well as printing services,\u00a0for details.<\/p>\n 3D Model Repositories<\/a> list collections of 3D plans, including file types and availability, e.g., CC, GPL, paid, etc.<\/p>\n 3D Printing Resources<\/a>, a subject guide from\u00a0the UCLA Knowledge Base.<\/p>\n Lessons Learned Creating Sustainable, Deployable, Open-access 3D Printing Services<\/a> (PDF), by Eric Maslowski at the University of Michigan Library.<\/p>\n Make: Ultimate Guide to 3D Printing 2014<\/em> (M. Frauenfelder, 2013, O’Reilly Books\/Maker Media; updated annually) offers thorough reviews of printers, scanners, extruders, and controller software. Some open source printer manufacturers are\u00a0Ultimaker<\/a>, Reach<\/a>, and Kossel Pro<\/a>.<\/p>\n MakerBot<\/a>, a commercial firm,\u00a0builds 3D printers and offers a searchable community,\u00a0Thingiverse<\/a>; they encourage makers to make their 3D designs available through CC. MakerBot’s intellectual property (terms of service<\/a>) extends to their services and patents, and end-user license agreements (e.g., EULA on the printers they sell; legal details<\/a>). N.B.<\/strong> MakerBot’s hardware has become closed-source<\/a>\u00a0(C. Thompson, 30 May 2012), while some of the software and Thingiverse collaborations remain primarily open-source (Wikipedia)<\/a>.<\/p>\n Shapeways<\/a> is another commercial firm, except they focus on providing 3D printing services for uploaded models and designs with a wide range of physical media (plastic, metal, etc.). Their content policy<\/a> specifies publicly accessible designs as licensed via CC, or through a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive license<\/a>.<\/p>\n Smithsonian Institution has a 3D browser and collection of cultural objects<\/a> and fossils<\/a>, some of which are in the public domain or without known copyright restrictions (terms of use<\/a>).<\/p>\n Fan fiction (fanfic) is a diverse, growing medium of enthusiasts, consisting of both amateur and professional creators making transformative works.<\/p>\n 15 most post popular fan fiction sites<\/a> (P. Kowalczyk, 15 July 2015) includes non-commercial, non-profit, as well as commercial resources \u2014 such as Archive of Our Own<\/a> (AO3) and FanFiction.net<\/a>, both which utilize a\u00a0worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive license<\/em> for user submissions.<\/p>\nFinding public domain works<\/h2>\n
Alternative, openly licensed works for free<\/h2>\n
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![\"Flickr](\"http:\/\/lis.iwaruna.com\/copyright-toolkit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/11\/Flickr-search-300x130.png\")
![\"Vimeo](\"http:\/\/lis.iwaruna.com\/copyright-toolkit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/11\/Vimeo-search-255x300.png\")
![\"YouTube](\"http:\/\/lis.iwaruna.com\/copyright-toolkit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/11\/YouTube-search-300x206.png\")
DRM-free media to buy<\/h2>\n
\u0003Creating\u00a0works through OA or alternative licensing<\/h2>\n
Ebooks<\/h3>\n
3D printing & models<\/h3>\n
Fan fiction<\/h3>\n