Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons Licensing for Educators

CC Search provides users with the ability to search for content with Creative Commons licenses from a variety of databases offered by independent organizations, including Wikimedia Commons, SoundCloud, Pixabay, Google Images, etc. Users can also limit results to content that can be used for commercial purposes and/or modified, adapted, or built upon. As Creative Commons does not have control over search results, users should double-check to see that the content is under a CC license by following the links. The new Beta CC Search, with new search filters and one-click attribution, allows users to search across a variety of vetted open-sourced content through one single interface.

Flaticon features more than 573,000 free vector icons that can be used for personal and commercial purposes. Premium subscribers who pay a small monthly fee also have access to premium icons and don’t need to provide attribution. Users who aren’t premium subscribers must provide credit to the icon designer. Users can search and download individual icons or icon packs that are organized by category (finance, technology, etc.). Icons are available in PNG, SVG, EPS, PSD, and BASE 64 formats. Flaticon’s @font-face Generator allows users to convert icons to webfonts. Flaticon also has an Adobe extension and Mac OS X app.

IconArchive has a library of more than 500,000 icons organized in 45 different categories. Users can search or browse for individual icons or icons sets that can be sorted by alphabet, popularity, number of icons, resolution (the highest resolution, 1024px, is listed first), color, size, or artist. Icons can be downloaded in a variety of sizes and formats. The license and attribution information is also available for each icon and icon set.

Pexels is a library of 40,000 free high-quality stock photos, which can be used for both personal and commercial purposes. All photos are covered under the Creative Commons Zero license, and attribution is not required. Users can search for images or can also browse by color, popular photos, popular searches, photographers, and categories (summer, abstract, city, fashion, etc.) Every image can be downloaded in a variety of sizes, and each photo also has suggestions for similar images. Those who sign up for accounts receive 40 additional photos to download and can upload their own photos to the Pexels community.

Pixabay features more than 1.1 million photos, vector graphics, illustrations, and videos that can be used for commercial and noncommercial purposes. All content is licensed under Creative Commons. Users can search by media type, orientation, pixel size, color, and categories ranging from animals, architecture, religion, music, beauty/fashion, and people. Images can be downloaded in a variety of sizes, and each image also provides users with suggestions for similar images.

Unsplash is a searchable library of free high-resolution digital photographs that can be downloaded and used for any purpose, both commercial and noncommercial. In addition to searching for images, users can also browse the most popular collections by topic or the results of trending searches. Unsplash also has a Chrome extension, so each new tab provides a new photograph, which can also be downloaded. Users who create accounts can make private or public collections and receive announcements, recommended photos, resources, tips, etc.