Openverse Creative Commons Media Scraper: CC0 Images & Audio

Search openly-licensed, royalty-free images and audio and get the license, attribution and source provenance for every asset, so you can reuse it legally. Here is one real result, with every field the actor returns:

{
  "id": "89f5ff02-d895-455c-9c9c-cd8dd934c8bf",
  "mediaType": "image",
  "title": "You Looking at Me? Mountains goats in Glacier National Park, Montana",
  "creator": "U.S. Geological Survey",
  "creatorUrl": "https://www.flickr.com/photos/27784370@N05",
  "license": "cc0",
  "licenseVersion": "1.0",
  "licenseUrl": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/",
  "licenseLabel": "CC0 1.0",
  "commercialUse": true,
  "modificationsAllowed": true,
  "url": "https://live.staticflickr.com/5550/13974169513_5e21ce9b9a.jpg",
  "thumbnail": "https://api.openverse.org/v1/images/89f5ff02-d895-455c-9c9c-cd8dd934c8bf/thumb/",
  "foreignLandingUrl": "https://www.flickr.com/photos/27784370@N05/13974169513",
  "provider": "flickr",
  "source": "flickr",
  "category": null,
  "width": 500,
  "height": 339,
  "filetype": null,
  "filesize": null,
  "durationMs": null,
  "bitRate": null,
  "sampleRate": null,
  "genres": null,
  "waveform": null,
  "tags": ["alpine", "climatechange", "glacier", "glaciernationalpark", "habitats", "mammals"],
  "tagCount": 10,
  "attribution": "\"You Looking at Me? Mountains goats in Glacier National Park, Montana\" by U.S. Geological Survey is marked with CC0 1.0. To view the terms, visit https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/.",
  "relatedUrl": "https://api.openverse.org/v1/images/89f5ff02-d895-455c-9c9c-cd8dd934c8bf/related/",
  "detailFetched": false,
  "aiAltText": null,
  "aiCaption": null,
  "aiSeoKeywords": null,
  "detailUrl": "https://api.openverse.org/v1/images/89f5ff02-d895-455c-9c9c-cd8dd934c8bf/",
  "searchQuery": "mountain",
  "observedAt": "2026-08-17T01:24:21.071Z"
}

The complete Creative Commons media search in one actor. It returns openly-licensed and public-domain images and audio aggregated from Flickr, Wikimedia Commons, museums, Jamendo and more, and for every asset it gives you the exact license, a human-readable license label, a ready-to-use attribution string, and derived commercialUse and modificationsAllowed flags. That is what turns a random image URL into media you can safely reuse.

📥 Input · 📤 Output · 💰 Pricing · ▶️ Examples

Table of contents

• What it does
• Use cases
• Quickstart
• Input reference
• Output reference
• Run via API and CLI
• Fetch results
• Billing and limits
• FAQ and troubleshooting

What it does

The actor searches the Openverse catalog of openly-licensed media by keyword and writes one record per media item to the run's dataset. Choose images or audio, then narrow with filters for license code, commercial or modification usage, provider, category, file extension, image aspect ratio and size, and creator. Every record carries the direct file URL, thumbnail, original source page, provider and source, dimensions, tags, and the full licensing block: license, licenseVersion, licenseUrl, a human-readable licenseLabel such as CC BY-SA 4.0, a ready-to-paste attribution string, and the derived commercialUse and modificationsAllowed booleans so you instantly know how each asset may be used.

Two optional add-ons (paid Apify plans only) enrich each item. includeDetail fetches the per-item detail endpoint to add the complete tag set, a related-media link and any metadata the search list omits. withAiCaption generates accessibility alt text, an SEO caption and keywords from the item's title and tags. Note that the AI caption is produced from the item metadata only; the model does not see the image or audio itself. Missing values are always returned as null, never invented.

Use cases

• Royalty-free media libraries. Build a searchable library of CC0 images, public-domain photos and stock media that your team can reuse without licensing risk.
• Attribution-clean blogging and design. Grab commercially-usable stock photos with a ready-made credit line for blog posts, presentations, newsletters and social media.
• ML and AI training datasets. Assemble openly-licensed image and audio datasets for machine learning, filtered to commercialUse and modificationsAllowed so the training data is safe to use.
• Accessibility and SEO. Use the AI caption add-on to generate alt text and SEO keywords for every reused asset.
• Licensing compliance audits. Verify the license, version and attribution requirement of media before publishing, at scale.
• Music and sound sourcing. Find Creative Commons audio, tracks and sound effects for videos, podcasts and games with duration, genre and license in every row.

Quickstart

Open the actor, paste this into the input, and press Run. It returns up to 50 CC0 (public-domain) photographs of mountains.

{
  "mediaType": "image",
  "query": "mountain",
  "license": "cc0",
  "maxResults": 50
}

Change query to any keyword, switch mediaType to audio for music and sound, or set licenseType to commercial to restrict to commercially-usable media. Every filter is optional.

Input reference

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
mediaType	string	no	image	Which catalog to search: image or audio.
query	string	no	mountain	Keywords to search for, for example sunset, jazz, vintage poster.
license	string	no	cc0	Comma-separated Creative Commons license codes: cc0, pdm, by, by-sa, by-nc, by-nd, by-nc-sa, by-nc-nd.
licenseType	string	no	(any)	Usage filter: commercial, modification, or both.
source	string	no	(any)	Restrict to one provider, for example flickr, wikimedia, jamendo, freesound, met.
category	string	no	(any)	Content category. Images: photograph, illustration, digitized_artwork. Audio: music, sound_effect, podcast, audiobook, news.
extension	string	no	(any)	File type. Images: jpg, png, gif, svg. Audio: mp3, ogg, flac, wav.
aspectRatio	string	no	(any)	Image shape: tall, wide, square.
size	string	no	(any)	Image resolution: small, medium, large.
creator	string	no	(any)	Only return media by this creator or artist name.
maxResults	integer	no	50	Maximum number of media items to collect across all pages.
includeDetail	boolean	no	false	Paid add-on. Enrich each item from its detail endpoint (full tags, related media, extra metadata). Billed per item on a successful detail fetch.
withAiCaption	boolean	no	false	Paid AI add-on. Generate alt text, an SEO caption and keywords from the item's title and tags. Billed per item captioned.

Output reference

One dataset item per media asset. Types: string, integer, boolean, string[], or null when the source value is absent.

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Openverse media item ID.
mediaType	string	image or audio.
title	string	Media title.
creator	string	Creator or artist name, or null.
creatorUrl	string	Creator profile URL, or null.
license	string	Creative Commons license code, for example by-sa.
licenseVersion	string	License version, for example 4.0.
licenseUrl	string	URL of the license deed.
licenseLabel	string	Human-readable label, for example CC BY-SA 4.0 or CC0 1.0.
commercialUse	boolean	Whether the license allows commercial use (derived from the license code).
modificationsAllowed	boolean	Whether the license allows modifications or derivatives (derived from the license code).
url	string	Direct URL of the media file.
thumbnail	string	Thumbnail image URL.
foreignLandingUrl	string	Original source page URL.
provider	string	Aggregated provider, for example flickr, wikimedia.
source	string	Original media source.
category	string	Content category, or null.
width	integer	Image width in pixels, or null.
height	integer	Image height in pixels, or null.
filetype	string	File type, for example jpg, mp3, or null.
filesize	integer	File size in bytes, or null.
durationMs	integer	Audio duration in milliseconds (audio only), or null.
bitRate	integer	Audio bit rate (audio only), or null.
sampleRate	integer	Audio sample rate (audio only), or null.
genres	string[]	Audio genres (audio only), or null.
waveform	string	Audio waveform data URL (audio only), or null.
tags	string[]	Tag names describing the media.
tagCount	integer	Number of tags.
attribution	string	Ready-to-use attribution / credit string.
relatedUrl	string	URL for related media.
detailFetched	boolean	Whether the detail add-on enriched this item.
aiAltText	string	AI-generated accessibility alt text when the add-on is enabled, else null.
aiCaption	string	AI-generated SEO caption when the add-on is enabled, else null.
aiSeoKeywords	string[]	AI-generated SEO keywords when the add-on is enabled, else null.
detailUrl	string	Openverse detail endpoint URL for this item.
searchQuery	string	Search query that produced this record.
observedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp of when the record was collected.
error	string	Present only on a failed run; a single item with a populated error field is written instead.

Run via API and CLI

Start a run and wait for it to finish, then read the dataset. Replace <TOKEN> with your Apify API token.

Run synchronously and get dataset items in one call:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/scrapers_lat~openverse-cc-media-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mediaType":"image","query":"mountain","license":"cc0","maxResults":50}'

Start a run asynchronously:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/scrapers_lat~openverse-cc-media-scraper/runs?token=<TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mediaType":"audio","query":"jazz","license":"cc0,by","maxResults":200}'

Apify CLI:

apify call scrapers_lat/openverse-cc-media-scraper \
  --input '{"mediaType":"image","query":"sunset","licenseType":"commercial"}'

Fetch results

Every run writes to a dataset. Fetch items as JSON, CSV, or Excel by changing format:

# JSON
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<DATASET_ID>/items?token=<TOKEN>&clean=true&format=json"

# CSV
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<DATASET_ID>/items?token=<TOKEN>&clean=true&format=csv"

# Paginate large datasets
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<DATASET_ID>/items?token=<TOKEN>&offset=1000&limit=1000"

<DATASET_ID> is returned as defaultDatasetId in the run object. Use offset and limit to page through large result sets. clean=true drops empty and internal fields.

Billing and limits

• Pay per result. You are charged per media item returned (result event). See the pricing tab for the current per-result price.
• Add-ons billed separately. detail is charged per item only on a successful detail fetch, and ai_caption is charged per item only when the model returns usable output. Both add-ons are opt-in and available on paid Apify plans only.
• No charge on failure. If a run errors, the actor writes a single item with a populated error field and does not charge for it. Empty and zero-result runs cost nothing.
• Spend cap respected. Set maxTotalChargeUsd on the run; once reached, the actor stops emitting and charging further billable results.
• Free Apify plans are capped at 10 items per run and cannot use the paid add-ons. Upgrade for higher maxResults.

FAQ and troubleshooting

Is the media really free to use? Yes, subject to its license. Every record includes the license code, a human-readable label and the exact attribution string. Assets marked commercialUse: true and modificationsAllowed: true are the most permissive. Public-domain items (cc0, pdm) need no attribution, though crediting the creator is good practice.

How are commercialUse and modificationsAllowed decided? They are derived from the Creative Commons license code: commercialUse is false when the license carries the NonCommercial (nc) term, and modificationsAllowed is false when it carries the NoDerivatives (nd) term. Always confirm against the linked licenseUrl for your specific use.

Can I search audio as well as images? Yes. Set mediaType to audio to search Creative Commons music, tracks and sound effects, with durationMs, bitRate, genres and a waveform link on each row.

What does the AI caption add-on actually see? It generates alt text, a caption and SEO keywords from the item's title and tags only. It does not analyze the image or audio file itself, so treat the output as metadata-derived assistance.

A run returned 0 records. Why? Your query and filters matched no media. Try a broader keyword or remove filters such as license, source or extension. Zero-result runs are not charged.

Is this an official Openverse or Creative Commons tool? No. This actor is independent and has no affiliation with Openverse, WordPress or Creative Commons. It reads only openly-licensed media metadata that is publicly available.

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• TikTok Creative Center Scraper: Trending sounds, hashtags and ads.

More scrapers at scrapers.lat

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Independent tool, not affiliated with Openverse, WordPress or Creative Commons. Accesses only publicly available openly-licensed media metadata.