Royalty Free Multimedia

If you want to use pictures, video, and music from the Internet for your projects, you have to be careful.  Copyright laws prohibit the use of other people's material without permission and/or a fee.

First it is important to understand the following two terms:

COPYRIGHT = The exclusive right of the owner to copy the material until the date when the copyright expires.

FAIR USE = An exception to a Copyright whereby a person can use copyrighted materials for creative, non-commercial use.  There are no exact rules when it comes to Fair Use.  When cases are brought to court, they are decided on a case-by-case basis.  Here are the guidelines courts use to decide whether or not the material was used fairly:

1.  Transformative Quality - Has the work been transformed to be used in a new and different way?  This would be favorable to copying it exactly as is.  

2.  Commercial or noncommercial - Courts are more likely to find fair use where the use is for noncommercial purposes.

3.   Fact or Fiction - A particular use is more likely to be considered fair when the copied work is factual rather than creative.

4.  The amount and substantiality - How much of the original work was copied?  Copying large portions of copyrighted material is not favorable unless it can be shown that it was necessary to get the point across.  (example:  a parody)

5.  The effect of the use upon the potential market value.   Is the material copied replacing the market value?  In other words, is the availability of the copied material a substitute for your or anyone else having to buy it?

creativecommons.org has a search tool for content that can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed and built upon.  There are some restrictions, for example, you may have to credit the author or something like that.  See the Licenses section to clarify each type.

HERE IS THE CREATIVE COMMONS SEARCH TOOL

Here is a 6 minute video on how to use Creative Commons and check licenses:

Music and Sounds:

Open Source Music Project - You can search on-line or subscribe to the podcast to have music show up  in your iMovie music list.

Free Music Archive provides free, high-quality, music in a wide range of genres.

PodSafe Audio locate and download free music for multimedia presentations.

Sound Bible is a resource for finding and downloading free sound clips, sound effects, and sound bites.

Royalty Free Music hosts music tracks that can be reused in numerous ways. (some music free for students/teachers only)

Jamendo is a source of free and legal music downloads.FindSounds - search for a sound and find wav files!

Pictures

openclipart.org
pics.tech4learning.com
flikr.com
dreamtime.com

Video

You may use Vimeo.com or YouTube.com, but please see the MLTI Minute video for instructions on checking the copyright of a video before using it.