The Public Domain Project is a Database of Copyright-Free Media

Attention media free-loaders: the best thing to happen to you this week is Pod5’s Public Domain Project, a FREE marketplace of 80,000 royalty-FREE, copyright-FREE film clips, audio files and images in the public domain. If you’ve ever trawled old library archives looking for a very specific clip of emigrants arriving on a dock on Ellis Island on April 27^th, 1906—and I haven’t, but it seems like grueling work and I don’t have the work ethic or dedication to put in that kind of effort—then you know that even after finding the stuff you need, you’ll still have to figure out the complicated intricacies of copyright law in order to use it.

That’s what make’s the Public Domain Project so exciting—all this free media that was once floating aroud aimlessly in the public domain is now available to browse and use. And for anyone working on a documentary about the women’s workforce in the early 20^th century or the history of the Williamsburg Bridge, this is a major boon.