Digital Media: Public Domain

Public Domain is defined as work belonging to the public as a whole and include the following:  government documents and works, works with an expired copyright or no existing protection, and works published over 75 years ago. Instructors are encouraged to use Public Domain works to support and enhance instructional content within courses. The resources below provide Public Domain works that instructors may use. This list is a general list. You may use other websites to find Public Domain works, but you must site the source and produce the license agreement.

Educational Public Domain Resources

• Free Federal Resources for Educational Excellence at http://www.free.ed.gov/
• NASA Multimedia at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/index.html.
  • Read the Guidelines at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines/index.html
• Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/ (requires Yahoo account login)
• Creative Commons at http://creativecommons.org/
• Wikipedia at http://www.wikipedia.org/
• Wikimedia Commons at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
• YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/
• SchoolTube at http://www.schooltube.com/
• TeacherTube at http://www.teachertube.com/

Note: You should read the guidelines carefully from each resource. Some resources found on the sites above may be subject to copyright or have restrictions on their use.

Photo Attribution
Description: Public Domain Icon
Source: ThinkStock.com