WikiProject Resource Exchange


Public domain image resources is a copy of the master Wikipedia page at Meta, which lists a number of sources of public domain images on the Web.

Public Domain images should be marked with the Public Domain Mark 1.0. Public Domain Mark enables works that are no longer restricted by copyright to be marked as such in a standard and simple way, making them easily discoverable and available to others. The Public Domain Mark is recommended for works that are free of known copyright around the world. These will typically be very old works.[1] For a creator to release his/her works into the public domain legally they must use the creative commons CC0 license which gives creators a way to waive all their copyright and related rights in their works to the fullest extent allowed by law.[2] The presence of a resource on this list does not guarantee that all or any of the images in it are in the public domain. You are still responsible for checking the copyright status of images before you submit them to Wikipedia.

Please read the policy on image use and etiquette at: Wikipedia:Image use policy.

See also:

General Collections

Public Domain resources should have either the Public Domain Mark 1.0 or the CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication mark visible. Non-Public Domain resources should not be added to this list. Ordered by size of collection, largest first:

  • Wikimedia Commons hosts only freely licensed images, sound files, and other media. With over 26 million uploaded files, (as of May 2015), it is the largest free "images-only" repository. It contains many public domain images. Commons is the primary repository of media for all Wikimedia projects. Media on Commons can be used readily on all Wikimedia projects, just as if the media were uploaded to the projects directly. Media tagged with the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark can be found here: commons:Category:CC-PD-Mark
  • British Library Over a million images, taken mostly from illustrations in 17th, 18th and 19th Century books, released into the public domain, as announced on the British Library blog. Metadata about the images, and the books from which they come, is also available for download on Github.
  • Pixabay - 350,000 public domain photos and cliparts, exclusively under Creative Commons CC0 - free for private and commercial use.
  • Gaderinge - A gathering of the best public domain images, free to download. No membership, no restrictions. Organized into many useful categories.
  • PublicPhoto.Org - Over 26,000 unique photos with a resolution of up to 4752 x 3168 px free for private and commercial use.
  • PD Photo - Large collection of mostly public domain photos. Read the license for each picture before use; also, model releases may not have been obtained for all photos.
  • PublicDomainArchive.com - High quality public domain images - free for private and commercial use. All images licensed under CC0 license.
  • Photos Public Domain Thousands of high quality public domain photographs free for any use, with no restrictions. Collections included are: textures, animals, nature, and a variety of stock images for any use, including commercial.
  • LibreShot.com - High-resolution photos in Martin Vorel's photo blog. Photos from travelling (Mongolia, Thailand, Europe) and animals, plants and nature photos. All pictures are licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
  • Free Stock Images Various categories of public domain pictures, some are edited versions from other sources. Be sure to only use this link for public domain files as others on the website are not public domain.
  • Pond5 Public Domain project 80.000 photos, videos and sound clips - free for private and commercial use [3].
  • Viintage.com - Thousands of vintage graphics, ephemera, and vintage advertisements that are in the public domain - free for private and commercial use.
  • PDPics.com Public domain photo collection with about 7400 high resolution pictures up to 6000x4000. All images licensed under CC0 license.
  • BestPhoto.us - about 2500 free photos in various categories.
  • Pexels - more than 2,000 photos and all are under CC0 Licence, so that you can use them everywhere. Even in business-context. They committed to add 10 photos a day.
  • Picdrome - growing Public Domain picture collection: no copyright, licensed under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication.
  • Public-Domain-Photos.com
  • 4 Free Photos Public domain images.
  • Public Domain Files Public domain pictures and clip art.
  • PD Poster Public domain posters]
  • RepublicDomain.com is a place for free public domain photos and desktop wallpapers.
  • Phototeria.com The site presents a collection of public domain images.
  • clker - Easy to search public domain images, directly usable in openoffice.org
  • thepublicdomain - public domain images from various sources in one-a-day blog format.
  • Free Photos - Small personal photographic collection dedicated to the public domain.
  • Public Domain Footage - Public domain archival stock footage and newsreels.
  • Open Galleries A community source of free photography, hosting several galleries with photos from all over the world.
  • The Public Domain Review - A Blog by the Open Knowledge Foundation to easily access public domain resources.
  • Freetems - Public Domain images, graphics and more, free without registration.
  • Public Domain Pictures A large collection of high quality pictures for free. Possibility to contact the authors for original files. (For some photo you have to be "premium membership" a.k.a. you have to pay !).
  • FreeStockPhotos.biz A large collection of Public Domain, GNU, Creative Commons & custom licensed stock photos and clip art. (Beware, CC images is not Public Domain).
  • Good Free Photos - All public domain pictures of mainly landscape but wildlife and plants as well
  • 1 Million Free Pictures - All pictures covering various topics are released into public domain. These pictures are originally created by the owner therefore these pictures can be used for personal and commercial use.
  • Pickupimage.com Large collection of high quality free stock photos and public domain pictures.
  • Morguefile Free Stock Photos "Contains free high resolution digital stock photographs and reference images for either corporate or public use. The purpose of this site is to provide free image reference material for illustrators, comic book artist, designers, teachers and all creative pursuits." Over 300,000 images.
  • UnSplash.com Free (do whatever you want) hi-resolution photos. 10 new photos every 10 days.
  • Topers Photos A collection of original and edited photos using various photo applications. These photos are dedicated by the creator into the public domain. It does not require credits but a backlink to the photo blog is appreciated.
  • Google repository of LIFE images hosts a large repository of LIFE images; Time Warner, Inc. claims blanket copyright to everything but this is simply untrue. (see here and also see here) Anything more than 120 years old (i.e., before 1892) is generally safe. (exception is if the original author died less than 75 years ago—45 years after these PD pictures have been taken—the author lived in a state with Common law copyright, and the name of the author is known—and in that case Time itself is most likely in copyright violation.) You must remove the watermark if you use the larger image.
  • skitterphoto.com Daily added free to use and modify photographs, published under Creative Commons CC0 license (no rights reserved).
  • duion.com Archive of pictures, mainly for texture-creation, all Images are under CC0 (Public Domain) license.
  • creativecommons.photos Database for Creative Commons Public Domain CC0 licensed Photos.
  • My Public Domain Pictures - A growing collection of amateur pictures released into public domain. You can use their pictures for any purpose and they do not require anything in return. Their collection includes travel pictures, pictures of animals and plants, background designs and many more being added everyday. They also include a collection of high resolution public domain pictures segregated according to topics including etchings of public domain pictures. The site also includes macro photography.
  • Public Domain Media - Amateur photos released into public domain.
  • PLiXS - free images - Thousand free public domain images.

US Government resources

If any page or image seems missing, replace http://www.sru.edu/depts/cisba/compsci/dailey in its URI with http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/

Subject-based Collections

Ordered by subject, alphabetically:

Art

Note: Accurate photographs of two-dimensional visual artworks lack expressive content and are automatically in the public domain once the painting's copyright has expired (which it has in the US if it was published before 1923). All other copyright notices can safely be ignored.

  • http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/
  • http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ - The Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS) is an American art catalog compiled by the Smithsonian Institute. It has many reproductions of American paintings. However, it is known to have a number of factual errors, so it should be used with great care.
  • http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artistindex.php - Images of the works of more than 2,600 realist painters, many in the public domain; check catalogue for dates of works and artists. Note: Accurate photographs of two-dimensional visual artworks lack expressive content and are automatically in the public domain once the painting's copyright has expired (which it has in the US if it was published before 1923). All other copyright notices can safely be ignored.
  • http://www.thefamousartists.com - Growing resource with biographies and selected works of artists whose works are all in the public domain.
  • http://www.getty.edu/art/ - 10000 images of Getty Museum[4] There is also search page

Automotive

  • The Crittenden Automotive Library. Not all are PD! The image detail page will state the status, PD images will be marked "Public domain" or by year of publication if before 1922.

Clip Art

Clip art, in the graphic arts, refers to pre-made images used to illustrate any medium. Clip art is generally composed exclusively of illustrations (created by hand or by computer software), and does not include stock photography.

  • http://www.wpclipart.com - exists to maintain and grow an online collection of artwork for schoolkids and others that is free of copyright concerns as well as safe from inappropriate images. To ensure these qualities, no direct user-uploaded images are allowed. This is one of the largest collections of public domain images online (clip art and photos), and the fastest-loading. Maintainer vets all images and promptly answers email inquiries.
  • Open Clip Art - This project is an archive of public domain clip art. The clip art is stored in the W3C scalable vector graphics (SVG) format.
  • Public Domain Clip Art- 25,000+ Public Domain Clip Arts (good for printing). Categorized & searchable.
  • Public Domain Vectors- Categorized and searchable vector graphics in public domain
  • Clip Art/Public Domain at DMOZ (a list of links to sites with public domain clip art)

Computer-generated

History

  • http://ushistoryimages.com - Public domain images from United States history.
  • http://www.acliparthistory.com - Public Domain images of the History of the World. Also Natural History and Fancy letters suitable for school projects
  • http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ammemhome.html Library of Congress American Memory site (Check copyright information for the separate items before deciding to use them!)
  • http://www.exclassics.com/newgate/ngillus.htm Images from The Newgate Calendar. Mostly crimes and criminals from the 18th century. Also other works at http://www.exclassics.com
  • http://www.fromoldbooks.org/ Collection images scanned from various old books that are now in the public domain. Searchable. Used to be under http://www.holoweb.net/~liam/
  • http://www.john-leech-archive.org.uk/ John Leech sketch archives 1841 until 1864 from Punch magazine The page states they are long out of copyright and that they are believed to be public domain.
  • http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/ Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library's online collection of digital images. Most will be {PD-art}. 90,000 images from rare books and manuscripts, search by keyword.
  • http://digitalgallery.nypl.org New York Public Library. Over 700,000 images scanned from books. Including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more. There is a per-image usage fee even for public domain images.
  • http://www.oldbookillustrations.com/ Images scanned from old books. States that images on the site are the works of artists who "...have been dead for over seventy years, which makes them part of the public domain in many countries". Searchable by keywords.
  • America As It Was - a huge resource for vintage postcards in the US, organized by state. Any postcard first published in the US before 1978 without an explicit copyright notice is PD. Lots of photos, aerial views, and maps of many US locations.
  • "The Secret Museum of Mankind" - collection of anthropological photographs published in a 1935 book without copyright. Scanned and released under a CC-NC license, but images should be public domain, at least in the US, since they are faithful reproductions of PD images. (Warning: strong 1930's racist P. O. V.)

Specific periods

Literature

Logos and flags

Mexico

Music

New Zealand

Postage stamps

Religion

United States

Florida

Search Engines

  • Wayback Machine Search 150 Billion web pages preserved by the Internet Archive.
  • Google Image Search - Advanced search can search for free licensed or PD works By default, Google does not filter based on license. Add the following (without quotes) to your search URL to display only images with licensing appropriate for Wikipedia: "&tbs=sur:fmc"
  • everystockphoto.com - Searching over 4.3 million public domain and creative commons photos including Wikipedia and NASA. Free user accounts with drag and drop collections, and other features.
  • PicFindr.com - Searches a hand picked collection of public domain-, free stock photo-, and photo community sites. Includes the ability to search by rights! (whether you need to give credit, ask permission or not)
  • StockBlend.com - Lets you search and browse through multiple Stock agencies.
  • Bing.com - Has an Advanced Image Search, that offers images in different resolutions and also categorizes images. Allows free querying of the bing Image Search API up to a certain limit per day.

References

  1. ^ http://creativecommons.org/about/pdm
  2. ^ https://creativecommons.org/about/cc0
  3. ^ http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/20/pond5-issues-80000-free-media-assets-with-the-launch-of-its-public-domain-project
  4. ^ "Open Content Program (The Getty)" (in English). Retrieved 2013-11-14.