Research Guides: Audio-Visual Series: Video Creation and Editing (ProDev): Asset Resources

Asset Resources

Applied Copyright: Find & Use Free Media (Barbara Waxer)
Lists resources for reusable media and simple infographics to help you make decisions for reusing content. Very handy!
Bensound - Free Music for Videos
Selection of tracks made available for free download from Bensound.
Canva
Use templates or start from scratch to create visuals. Upload your own images or take advantage of the free graphics available from Canva.
Morgue File
Free, high-resolution stock photography. (Free account required to download.)
Unsplash
All photos published on Unsplash can be used for free. You do not need to ask permission from or provide credit to the photographer or Unsplash, although it is appreciated when possible.
Wikimedia Commons
Freely usable videos, images and sounds with a robust search interface.

Bensound
Royalty-free music [meaning you pay a fee 1 time to use the track repeatedly/continuously]. Search by genre, mood, theme, instrument.

Applied Copyright: Find & Use Free Media (Barbara Waxer)
Lists resources for reusable media and simple infographics to help you make decisions for reusing content. Very handy!
AudionautiX
Free music composed by Jason Shaw, available for free so long as you provide credit. Search site by filtering mood, genre, tempo.
Canva
Use templates or start from scratch to create visuals. Upload your own images or take advantage of the free graphics available from Canva.
Dig - CCmixter
Search their remix catalog. Some tracks are CC licensed (requiring credit); some ask for a one-time fee to license the track.
Freesound
Collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, and all sorts of bleeps, ... released under Creative Commons licenses that allow their reuse.
Musopen
Royalty- and copyright-free (offered under CC licenses) recordings of classical music.
Orange Free Sounds
Free sound effects, music, loops, beats.
Wistia Background Music
Some free tracks to download.

Applied Copyright: Find & Use Free Media (Barbara Waxer)
Lists resources for reusable media and simple infographics to help you make decisions for reusing content. Very handy!
Canva
Use templates or start from scratch to create visuals. Upload your own images or take advantage of the free graphics available from Canva.

Creative Commons: Set of licenses creators can choose to apply to their works. The creator retains copyright but has preemptively licensed it to explicitly give permission to people to reuse it under certain conditions, the most minimal of which is providing credit to the creator.
Fair Use: Part of copyright law, fair use describes conditions in which you can reuse copyrighted content without needing permission from (or payment to) the creator. Fair use favors nonfiction, nondramatic/creative, educational reuses.
License: Agreement as to how you can use content you've acquired. These can be more restrictive or more freeing. A license may override fair use.
Public Domain: Works in the public domain are not under any copyright and may be used and remixed by anyone. This includes historical works, works whose copyright registration lapsed (pre-1978), or works deliberately released to the public domain.
Royalty-free: Not the same as free-free. Royalties are paid regularly to artists/IP-owners based on the amount of circulation their work gets. Royalty-free means you'll buy an asset to use, but it's a one-time payment -- you will not have to keep paying kickbacks to the artist.

Creative Commons (CC) Licenses
Read more about the various Creative Commons licenses and what they mean.