variesper-file reviewCredit: Not requiredverified 37d agoGo to source
About 10,000 "ephemeral" films (advertising, educational, industrial and amateur, in the archive's own words) hosted on the Internet Archive. A classic source of period footage for FMV, found-footage horror, in-world TV screens and retro trailers. Not all of it is public domain, and the archive says so in capitals.
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Follow licence changes (an Atom feed of changes to this licence, its commercial use, credit or status)
Per film, not per collection. Films that carry the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication can be used "generally without cost or restriction". Films without it may be in copyright, owned by Prelinger, or orphan works. The archive stopped applying the dedication to newer uploads because it "did not work well with many films"
How to check a film: open its Internet Archive page and look for the Creative Commons public-domain licence link. Of the 30 most-downloaded films in the collection on 2026-09-23, 28 carried it and 2 carried none. That sample flatters the collection: across all 10,468 items on 2026-10-04, only 1,871 carry the dedication, so most films have no stated licence. If yours has none, the FAQ suggests looking for another copy of the same film that does, or writing to prelingerclips@gmail.com
A dedicated film can still contain third-party music, images or footage "that might not be free to use outside the context of the original film". Strip the soundtrack if you are unsure of it
No written clearance from the Internet Archive. Prelinger offers written agreements, and Getty Images licenses higher-quality masters of about 19,000 clips for a fee
Credit: not required. The FAQ (question 10, read in full 2026-10-04) says they "would be delighted" if you credit Prelinger Archives and Internet Archive, "but we do not require that you do so". The earlier unknown came from quoting only the first half of that sentence. Crediting costs nothing
Still open (re-checked 2026-10-04): rights are per film, so the collection cannot be active. Credit and the meaning of the dedication are settled; whether a given film may ship in a commercial game depends on whether it carries the public-domain dedication (about 18% of items do) and on any third-party music or footage inside it
Each film is offered in several encodings: on the three items checked, MPEG4 at two sizes and h.264, MPEG2, and Ogg video
Review: check per film whether it carries the public-domain dedication and has no third-party music or footage before shipping it.
Evidence
Live Prelinger rights FAQ, linked from the collection's rights field (2026-09-23): "DO NOT ASSUME that all Prelinger Archives films are in the public domain, or that all of them carry Creative Commons licenses."
Same page (2026-09-23): "Many files are available under the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication, which means you can use them according to the terms of the license, generally without cost or restriction."
Same page (2026-09-23): "public domain materials may occasionally incorporate copyrighted elements (such as music, images and archival footage) that might not be free to use outside the context of the original film."
Internet Archive search API, collection:prelinger sorted by downloads (2026-09-23): 10,468 items; 28 of the top 30 carry licenseurlhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/
Collection description (2026-09-23): "a collection of over 60,000 "ephemeral" (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films"
Live Prelinger rights FAQ, page dated May 27, 2026 (2026-10-04): "10. Do I need to credit Prelinger Archives or Internet Archive when I use your material? We would be delighted if you credit Prelinger Archives and Internet Archive (www.archive.org/details/prelinger) for films or footage that you use, but we do not require that you do so."
Same page (2026-10-04): "The copyright status of films in our online collection varies. Some are in public domain. We own the copyright to some items. Others are orphan works"; "this Public Domain dedication still governs films to which it has been affixed. For films without a Creative Commons license, please contact us at prelingerclips@gmail.com for information on how to reuse them."
Internet Archive search API (2026-10-04): collection:prelinger 10,468 items; licenseurl:"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/" on 1,871 of them
