There are plenty of places to find public domain images online. But finding public domain video clips isn’t quite as easy as finding public domain images. Part of the reason for that is the cost associated with hosting videos. Should you find yourself or your students in need of public domain video clips to mix into video projects, try one of these five places that host public domain videos that you can download.
Last month the Library of Congress launched the National Screening Room. The National Screening Room currently offers about 300 videos. The videos are digital copies of films made in the 19th and 20th centuries. You can browse the collection by date, location of the filming, and subject. You can also search for videos that are parts of other LOC collections. All of the videos in the National Screening Room can be viewed online and or downloaded as MP4 files.
Flickr is known for hosting millions of images, but it also hosts lots of videos. The advanced search tools within Flickr make it easy to find videos that have Creative Commons licenses or have a public domain designation. With just one click those videos can be downloaded to your computer. Watch my video embedded below to learn how to find public domain videos on Flickr.
Pixabay has been one of my go-to sites for public domain images for years. Pixabay also offers public domain video clips that you can download for free. To find video clips on Pixabay simply choose “video” from the drop-down menu that appears in the right edge of Pixabay’s search box.
Stockio, like Pixabay, offers a mix of public domain pictures and videos to download for free. To download a video from Stockio simply click the “download” button that appears to the right of all videos. Registration is not required in order to download videos from Stockio.
The Public Domain Review is a website that features collections of images, books, essays, audio recordings, and films that are in the public domain. Choose any of the collections to search for materials according to date, style, genre, and rights. Directions for downloading and saving media is included along with each collection of media.
Learn more about mixing public domain videos into your own video projects in my upcoming course, Video Projects for Every Classroom.
