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You can use public domain music and photographs for your website, or for CD’s or DVD’s that you plan to sell. In fact, finding public domain music and photographs is really quite easy, and such items can usually be obtained at no cost.

You can even obtain public domain sheet music, and possibly compile a collection that you can copyright and sell! You could obtain the actual music files for public domain music and create your own music CD as well.

Starting with photographs, there are numerous sources. There are so many collections that exist online, a good place to start your search is at the Wikipedia resource for public domain images, which can be found at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_image_resources

While this is a great place to start, there are still many other good resources as well.

Other sources for public domain photographs include:

· Eastman House - http://www.eastmanhouse.org
· The New York Public Library - http://www.nypl.org/digital/index.htm
· US Dept. of Interior - http://www.doi.gov/gallery.html

For sheet music, good resources include:

· Choral Public Domain Library - http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
· The Music Library - http://mus.lib.ru/index_eng.html
· Sheet Music Archive - http://www.sheetmusicarchive.net/
· Public Domain Music - http://www.pdmusic.org/

For actual public domain music, you should check Musopen at http://www.musopen.com/. Actual music is harder to find then sheet music in the public domain. However, if you can find the sheet music for public domain music, the chances are good that you can probably find the actual music on the Internet as well. Therefore, when you want music files, start by finding the sheet music first, to ensure that it is indeed in the public domain.

Again, most of these resources will not charge for the files. There are some really good finds just waiting to be found – and there is a lot of money to be made from these ‘oldie but goodies’ if they are used in the right way.

The Government publishes a lot of information – on a wide variety of topics. Believe it or not, all of that material is in the public domain – in terms of materials published by the United States Government anyway. Other Governments may have different rules pertaining to this.

When you want to use work that was published by a Government other than the US Government, it is very important that you find out for sure if you are free to use the work, and how you are able to use the work. For instance, Canada claims Crown Copyright to their materials. Each different country has different rules and laws – so make sure you check.

But in terms of materials produced by the United States Government, it is free for anyone to use – and there is literally tons of information waiting for you! Below is a list of US Government Offices where you can obtain free public domain work that was published by the Government.

The Library of Congress – http://catalog.loc.gov

The IRS – http://www.irs.gov

US Government Printing Office – http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cgp/index.html

Government Information Connection - http://www.library.unt.edu/govinfo/subject/catsindx.html

National Security Agency - http://www.nsa.gov/public/

US Department of State - http://www.state.gov/

NARA – http://www.archives.gov

FirstGov – http://www.firstgov.com

Federal Citizen Information Center – http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov

The FBI – http://www.fbi.gov

CDC – http://www.cdc.gov

This is just a small list of the governmental websites that contain information that is in the public domain. Even if these sites don’t have the information published on their website, they will provide instructions of ordering or obtaining publications that they have. The US Government Printing Office is always a good place to start your search.
Furthermore, you can also go to Google at http://www.google.com and type in “not copyrighted” site: .gov or “public domain” site:.gov. Make sure that you include the quotation marks in the appropriate place when searching.

Obviously, when you start your search for works in the public domain, you will begin your search online. While you can find just about anything and everything that you want online, you should also consider doing some offline searches as well, especially to find public domain works that are more rare – and ultimately more valuable.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t find public domain works that are valuable online as well. In fact, there are literally thousands of resources, and even some commercial directories of places where these works can be found.

You may want to start your online search at the Internet Public Library at http://www.ipl.org. There are numerous books that you can view online on a wide variety of topics.

The Project Gutenberg is another good source at http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog. Archive.org at http://www.archive.org provides over a hundred thousand links to public domain work.

If you are looking for public domain photographs, a great place to start your search is the Library of Congress at http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/ which houses approximately 13.7 million images – all of which are in the public domain. The US Department of Interior also has a nice collection of images at http://www.doi.gov/gallery.html .

The Library of congress also houses public domain broadcasts, motion pictures, and sound recordings at http://www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/. You can find more public domain film at http://www.buyoutfootage.com/pages/pd.html and The Digital Media Bank at http://www.csuchico.edu/lcmt/dmb/imagesources.html.

There is also a lot of software that is in the public domain. A great source for public domain software is The Public Domain Software Library at http://aixpdslib.seas.ucla.edu/ and Source Forge at http://sourceforge.net/index.php .

Finally, Wikipedia has a nice resource for finding public domain works in various genres. Here, you will find a comprehensive list of resources divided into numerous categories. Just choose the category that best suits your needs. Take a look at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_resources