Copyrights are useful and to be respected of course. Brrrmmpf. Yet not all resources spend their life like penned livestock. There are many antibiotic free alternatives to copyrighted material. A good place to start is the Wikipedia entry for Public Domain Image Resources which has a lengthy list of online repositories. In addition, there is also a long list of excellent resources on a Wikispace for Copyright-Friendly images and sound. There are also an increasing number of image sharing sites like this Flickr site.
One of our personal favorites is the Internet Archive. The Archive doesn't have still images but is a repository for copyright free music, audio files, video files, spoken word and lots of other oddities. We've known people that got lost in there for days. The interface for downloading isn't the friendliest at first but you get used to it. For those die-hard deadheads out there make sure you check out their collection of live music on The Archive.
NASA and The Archive are working together to put all moving images and stills from the space program in one centralized location. That's another thing most people don't know, NASA posts incredible copyright free image resources. NASA images are generally NOT copyrighted. Here are the full terms for anyone interested. Anyway, go there, some cool spacey stuff.
The Library of Congress Digital Collections also has some amazing resources. The Prints and Photographs Catalog includes copyrighted and non-copyrighted material. Check the "rights information" listed for each item. There is a lot of old non-copyrighted photography that ranges a wide variety of topics.
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