BudgetStockPhoto.com

CC ZERO - No Attribution Creative Commons License

Until recently all creative commons image licenses required you attribute the author. The creative commons licensing system was created to allow authors to share their photography simply and easily by providing a standardised license framework.

Creative commons have now extended their license system to include a new significantly more liberal license, one that is similar to placing the image in the public domain. To summarize:

Standard Image (e.g. a commercial stock agency on in a photographer portfolio) = All Rights Reserved, Licensed Use

Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike etc = Some Rights Reserved, Free to use with conditions

CC Zero (listed below) and Public Domain = No Rights Reserved (by the photographer!)

 

CC0 clearly offers the most flexibility to the image user, often being dubbed as "do as you like" license. The only disadvantage is that there are almost 100 million Creative Commons Attribution licensed images available, but the range of CC0 images is somewhat smaller. There are quite a few websites available with CC0 images, but a quick search reveals a slim range of subjects. However there are some good 'popular' images that will look fantastic on a social media campaign etc. you'll also tend to see the same images copied around on different websites. By their nature they can be no such thing as an exclusive CC0 image, they can all be freely shared and redistributed, so we see a lot of 'cross pollination'

After spending hours reviewing the websites for this guide, one striking conclusion I have is that most of the sites look great! but many of them have so very few images, most have less than 200, the ones that have more simply copy the same images that other sites have.

We've reviewed CCZero websites until it felt like we couldn't look at another full width photo slider again: here's what we found....

 

CC0 Stock Image Site Directory

Free Signup Required?

Image Size

Approx size of Collection

(v) = Varies ?=Approx/Guesstimate, Always confirm the license information before you use any image you find on a site listed here.

streetwill.co	No	4000	132
vintage and retro modern with a nice mix of useful subjects and ideas as well as landscapes and art

 

isorepublic.com	No	?	~250
collection by various authors, some nice images, but limited collection and no search

skuawk.com	No	4000/Varies	~200?
some nice photos here, no search, but an enjoyable place to browse, not that much too choose from

thepicpac.com	No	4000+	500?
download packs of photos, 10 to choose from when we visited, CC0 license, "pay what you like" including '$0'.

 

kiviphoto.com	No	varies	800?
nice CC0 curation from various photographers in this managed collection

snapwiresnaps.tumblr.com	No	Varies	~550
CC0 licensed image collection, features an all important search! approx 30 images a month since June 2014

jaymantri.com	No	?	~?
very nice images - re how useful: see above, you'll want to slit your own wrists after 5 minutes searching

startupstockphotos.com	No	?	<100
stagnant - computers in trendy workspaces, nothing more, no search (tumblr base site)

splitshire	No	5214px(v)	1000?
trendy modern template but usability that someone should call the gui police! also featured of dirty little trick advertisements that pop over images just before you click for a larger view.

gratisography.com	No	2848	100's
nice fresh wallpapery/moody images, trendy square crops, limited category range.

picography.co	No		170
limited collection size, 170 images when we visited, of little use.

X freeuse.io	No		100's?
it's just the same old CC0 images uploads without much value added.

realisticshots.com	No	Varies	125
another uninspired tumblr feed.

negativespace.co	No	Varies	250
sounds and looks nice, but the reality is a bit disappointing.

libreshot.com	No	3000+	1000
quite a nice collection, that does not appear to have been simply copied from unsplash and jay mantri. Yes it has a working search and categories! how novel for a photo site to have those... whodathunkit,

focastock.com	No	Varies	?
hard to browse as a endless loading blog, but categories and search do work.

fancycrave.com	No	Varies	?
seems to be little more than a tumblr blog with links to peoples work on flickr.

largephotos.net	No	Varies	50 (!?)
either the search is not working or there as so few photos there's little to be found.

travelcoffeebook.com	No	Varies	<200
another tumblr feed with less than 200 travel stock images

X crowthestone.com	No	Varies	22
wow 22 images, nothing new since Sept. 2014. look somewhere else.

moveast.me	No	Varies	~200
very similar to travelcoffee book but oriental travel images, and not many of them, tumblr again

pixabay.com	Yes	Varies	1.7M
lots of images and good search, registration to download high res image

wunderstock.com	No	Varies	1000
nicely curated public domain images.?

cupcake	No	Varies	50
beautiful collection of high quality stock images from photographer Jonas Nilsson Lee, not many images

finda.photo	No	NA	Search Tool
searches some CC0 sites, but seems to have limited coverage, does a nice job of what it does

freenaturestock.com	No	Varies	~500
tumblr site with 30 or so nature photos upload each month, nothing special.

pickupimage.com	Yes	Varies	~500
different collection of images, in categories, registration needed to download.

splashbase.co	No	Varies	~?
dreadfully limited range of images scraped from other PD and CC0 Sites

jeshoots.com	No	2400	200
nice modern collection, no search but there are categories, just over 200 images, some of the download links were broken when we visited.

 

Stockadelic: Search through the top CC0 websites with a Single Click

 

 

Tumblr Site Tips:

Lots of CC0 artists have chosen to host their images on tumblr. The tumblr archive feature allows you to avoid whatever excuse for navigation some of these sites have and view images directly by upload date as thumbnails, just change the url to /archive to see a simple grid view of images and when they were uploaded.

Search Several CC0 sites at once:

imagefinder.co

 

The company jumpstory has made in interesting move in this arena, creating a subscription service to allow easier discovery of CC0 images using machine learning to filter the best images. The terms of use are concerning however, do not think that these images are without strings, there may be other rights holders featured in the 'free' images (logos, protected designs, people).

 

More Free Image Sites:
Creative Commons site directory (free use images with an attribution, simplified licenses)

NB: Always confirm the license details before you use the images, all of the sites listed here clearly display their terms of use which must be followed. Commercial use means that you can use the images in advertisements NOT that you can create products for sale using the images - This is possible but in almost all cases you will need to contact the provider or buy an 'extended license'

 

Something Wrong? Missing a Site / Add Listing
Think we have missed a site from the list? then let us know, but be sure that it's not already listed in our PD image sites or Creative Commons free image sites directories.

 

LEARN MORE - FREE RESOURCE BOOK

Free Resource Book listing the best of Free and Paid Stock Photo Libraries

Find out More

Sponsor+
DEPOSITPHOTOS the clear winners IN THE Subscription IMAGE MARKET