Free sources of videos on the web

This is an ongoing list I am compiling of free sources of video on the web. As an educator needing video for classroom use, I have a very strong interest in this subject! Although some companies will allow use of media content for educational purposes, not all do and there is a well established market for universities to purchase videos from publishers.



Courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

So, what do you do when you need videos but don't have the budget for it? The sites below allow you to use content for free-for educational, artistic, commercial purposes and more. Still, you must always look at the license for the use of the content, even if listed on a site that says the media is free for everyone to use. Is it public domain? Copyleft or Sharealike? Creative Commons? GFDL (GNU Free Documentation License)? I'll put up a post in the future about the types of free use licenses out there and what constitutes fair use of protected content. In the meantime, let's stick to the stuff that the creators have voluntarily given to the world to use:


Wikimedia Commons
From the site: "Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to all...Unlike traditional media repositories, Wikimedia Commons is free. Everyone is allowed to copy, use and modify any files here freely as long as the source and the authors are credited and as long as users release their copies/improvements under the same freedom to others." They feature over 90,000 media collections and over 4.7 million files. Each file has its own page specifying conditions of re-use.


Internet Archive Moving Images Archive

This is a library of free movies, films, and videos. The Internet Archive is the home of the Wayback Machine where you can browse 150 billion archived webpages going back to 1996. In the Moving Images Archive, although most files are free to use, "the person who uploads an item usually provides information about what can and cannot be done with the item. This is usually through setting a Creative Commons license." They have a great FAQ page that answers all these questions and provides detail technical help on how to play, encode, stream, burn, etc. the files you find. Sweet!

*Note: I agree with them that the best free media player out there is VLC Media Player, which works on both Windows and Mac OSX/9 operating systems.

TED.com
"Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world." I have searched for archives of famous or popular talks on YouTube, but haven't always found what I was looking for. This beautiful site features some of the most inspirational speeches and talks given, which you are free to use! This is a goldmine for instructional use, but I can imagine creatively using this content for many other kinds of endeavors.

National Geographic Videos
I have made great use of videos from National Geographic, by connecting my portable computer to the audio visual system in the classroom. The downside is that you have to be connected to the Internet to watch them. However, the technically savvy among you will figure out how to burn the videos to DVD or on to flash drives. On the site, you can watch hundreds of free videos that feature animals, nature, environmental issues, culture, world music, weather and more, including user submitted videos.



Videos from the US Government

Don't forget the US Federal Government! Many of the publications and other media produced by the government are in the public domain. Use this portal to find actual public domain videos from the Federal Government. Categorized from A to Z, there are more videos than you can imagine, from NASA to career videos to wildlife and so very much more. "Most of these videos are available for use in the public domain, and you may use and reproduce them without permission or fee." [Update: All of the Federal Government public domain videos formerly on Usa.gov are now on the Federal Government's YouTube channel.]

However, you still need to check the disclaimer or copyright notices on each link provided. Still, this page is the best place to start. If you search on your own, you might get into trouble as not all federal government publications and productions are free to use. You must check for copyright notices in the file itself. Often images in a public domain text are copyrighted. Also works created through grant funding or by agencies funded by the Federal government (vs. being part of the government) are typically not public domain.