More Fun with the Public Domain

In a mostly-copyrighted world, it’s really hard for media makers to find work that’s genuinely public domain (uncopyrighted), but a new project is making it easy.

The collaborative online video marketplace Pond5 (you can upload your own footage to it and sell it there) is launching a library of public domain content that includes 10,000 video clips, 65,000 photos, thousands of sound recordings, and hundreds of 3D models.

The collection includes 5,000 never-before-seen video clips, digitized directly from the National Archives outside of Washington D.C. Other video highlights: George Meliés’ 1902 film "A Trip to the Moon," along with footage from the 1952 Helsinki Olympic games, the World Wars, NASA rocket launches, and the International Space Station.

“We’re hoping to provide a free service of use to filmmakers, and also get them used to our site,” said CEO Tom Bennett.

The public domain material will be easily searchable with standardized metadata, as the rest of the site is. Conveniently, the footage sequences have been been broken down into individual shots.