Openly-Licensed Images and Videos

The following provides hints on finding openly-licensed images and important information on utilizing videos in OER.  One key point to remember is the license of the original media.  To be used in OER, the media must be:

Media needs to CC-BY or CC-BY-SA or CC-BY-NC-SA or CC0/Public Domain

Youi can find more information at the Taft College LIbrary Guide on OER and ZTC or about copyright and trademark law and photos from Nolo  

 

Finding Openly-Licensed Images

The best way to find the image that fits your needs is to use your favorite search engine and click on Images, then find the filter “All Licenses” and click on “All Creative Commons” or “Public Domain.” This isn’t foolproof, though; sometimes the search still provides images that are licensed or copyrighted.

Videos

Information about how to use videos in openly-licensed materials are described below.
  • What To Know

    Like images, use your favorite search engine and click on Videos, then find the filter “All Licenses” and click on “All Creative Commons”.  This isn’t foolproof, though; sometimes the search still provides videos that are licensed or copyrighted.  

    When searching,  reading the “About” page or the EULA (end user licensing agreements) to ensure that the owner of the site has the licensing rights to whatever you are sharing.

    Another thing to note is that the EULA’s of most of these services make it clear that they are free for streaming but not for public display (i.e. they cannot be shown in a classroom).  Some educators are under the false belief that they can do anything with source materials as long as it is for “educational” purposes, but that is not true.

    Avoid YouTube videos with auto-generated captions with this simple trick!  After entering a search on YouTube, use the "Filter" option to limit results to those with Subtitles/CC. Note the other filters available, such as Duration and Creative Commons:

    • There is no copyright violation if you embed YouTube videos, as pointed out in EFF, you are not copying the video, the embed code itself is just a link. 
      • "Taking a look at the actual code makes one thing obvious: no copy of the YouTube video is being stored on your server (only the HTML code for the embed). The video stays on, and is streamed from, YouTube's servers."
    • Content owners on YouTube who do not want their content embedded have settings to prevent that, it removes the functionality.
  • Finding Openly-License Videos

    You can also find openly licensed videos from the following sources.  

    Some of these were found under Multimedia in Dr. Larry Green’s How Do I Find OER.