Online multimedia marketplace Pond5 has just launched a Public Domain Project, which provides free access to a variety of media including nearly 10,000 public-domain film clips from various U.S. government sources and other repositories. It’s unclear what percentage of it has been uploaded to the web for the first time, but simply having such a large, curated collection available under one virtual roof and searchable by keyword should make it an important new resource for videopoets and other filmmakers. According to a help page,

Pond5 is thrilled to begin representing public domain content on our Website through the Pond5 Public Domain Project. We are making this content available to our customers and contributors without any charge, so they can rediscover part of mankind’s history and build upon it in their creative projects. We have designated Content on the Website as being “Public Domain Content” when we believe that it is in the public domain under the laws of the United States, meaning there are no copyright restrictions over that content.

[…]

What are Pond5’s sources of Public Domain Content?

We have generally obtained our public domain content from three categories of sources:

1. U.S. government repositories of creative works.
2. Other online and offline collections of public domain content that we believe are reputable.
3. Content that our curators or contributors have reviewed, and based on that review, believe are in the public domain.

I’ve added the link to Moving Poems’ page of Web Resources for Videopoem Makers. Thanks to Anna Dickie for bringing it to my attention.