Free And Legal Media Content List

[Jaime_Astorga]

Well, I posted this list a while ago in another forum, but I want as many people to benefit from it as possible, so I am posting it here in hope it helps somebody.

A few notes.

1. To the best of my knowledge, all of these sites offer their content legally. The copyright owner(s) either put it up themselves, or someone else made a deal with the copyright owner(s) to upload it, or it is very old content that has fallen out of copyright, or something else.
2. Adblock Plus + Easylist (USA) is extremely recommended for some of these sites. For example, they cut out the ads from the South Park streaming video.
3. Some of this content is delivered by stream rather than download; a high internet connection (cable or DSL) will come very in handy.
4. Some of the content (mainly streaming videos) is only available in certain countries. I have included the list of countries a source is limited to where it applies in italics below the title and link. I have difficulty knowing if a source is restricted to the United States, since I live there, so if any such sources lack a mention please let me know.
5. I am deliberately excluding educational content (textbooks, video or audio lectures, etc...). This is for entertainment media only.

Well, that's enough. Lets start listing the media by category.

TV Shows:

Hulu:
Available in the United States only.
Hulu makes deals with several companies to host their content online for free (making profit through advertisement revenue). Think YouTube, but with company content rather than user generated content. Has a very nice collection of both live-action and anime shows. Highlights include Death Note, Firefly, and lots more.

CBS:
CBS put several of their shows online for watching. Its collections includes Numb3rs, Jericho, and the classic Star Trek: The Original Series.

Crackle:
Available in the United States only.
Crackle is Sony's little platform for the distribution of their content. While it has a better movie selection, it still carries some good shows worth watching.

FUNimation Videos
Anime episodes distributed by FUNimation. They have a YouTube channel as well, if you don't want to deal with the video player their site. Released shows include Ouran High School Host Club, Galaxy Express 999, Slam Dunk, Kiddy Grade, and a lot more.

Madman Screening Room:
Available in Australia and New Zealand only.
Anime episodes uploaded by an anime company in Australia.

South Park:
Not availible in the UK, Australia, and a few other territories.
All the South Park episodes, from first to last, made available by Comedy Central for streaming. Very entertaining.

The Daily Show:
Recent episodes of The Daily Show, made available by Comedy Central for streaming. If you want to get to speed on the news while laughing at the wit of remarkable host Jon Stewart, this show is for you.

The Colbert Report:
Recent episodes of The Colbert Report, made available by Comedy Central for streaming. Kinda like The Daily Show, but takes the approach of satirizing the right wing instead.

Movies:

Hulu:
Available in the United States only.
Hulu again. They have a nice movie collection, too. Highlights include Jesus Christ Superstar, Anastasia, and much, much more.

Crackle:
Available in the United States only.
Crackle has a very nice film selection. Movies of note include Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, Jumanji, Godzilla, and several more.

YouTube Movies:
Feature length movies uploaded to YouTube (considering how zealous about copyright infringement YouTube has gotten under Google's ownership, I can only conclude the uploads are legal). The selection is a bit sparse, but you can still find some interesting movies in there (Animal Farm, for example).

Internet Archive:
Old movies that have fallen out of copyright; can be streamed or downloaded. Highlights include the Charlie Chaplin comedies & Nosferatu.

Michael Moore - Slacker Uprising:
"This is being done entirely as a gift to my fans. The only return any of us are hoping for is the largest turnout of young voters ever at the polls in November."

Books:

Free eBooks:
This list contains all the free eBook sites you will ever need, period.

Music:

Nine Inch Nails: Ghost I-IV:
Released by the band under creative commons, the album is now hosted on the Internet Archive. There's an official download page, too, but that only contains the first 9 tracks.

Nine Inch Nails: The Slip:
"As a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com." Well, they are wrong about the exclusivity, since the album was released under creative commons and so can be legally obtained anywhere. I linked to the Internet Archive location because the official site requires you to sign up (for free) to recieve the album, but if you prefer that, the site can be found here.

Pandora:
Pandora is an internet radio website. Basically, you enter the name of a song or an artist and songs which are deemed similar to the entered item by the music genome project will begin playing.

Steal This Wiki - Free Music:
Pretty nice list of available sources for music downloading. The contents include songs from "Creative Commons, Copyleft, Public Domain, or copyrighted tracks for free download."

Well, that's all I have for now. Opinions?

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

4. Some of the content (mainly streaming videos) is only available in certain countries. I have included the list of countries a source is limited to where it applies in italics below the title and link. I have difficulty knowing if a source is restricted to the United States, since I live there, so if any such sources lack a mention please let me know.

YouTube Movies:
Feature length movies uploaded to YouTube (considering how zealous about copyright infringement YouTube has gotten under Google's ownership, I can only conclude the uploads are legal). The selection is a bit sparse, but you can still find some interesting movies in there (Animal Farm, for example).

Not all movies at youtube movies are available everywhere. There is geographical restriction which you'll only see once you picked the movie you want to see...