Openverse API (Creative Commons Catalog)

Name: Openverse API (Creative Commons Catalog) API
Brand: Openverse API (Creative Commons Catalog)
Availability: InStock

★ Only Publicly Available OpenAPI DocumentMediaImage Processingbearer17 EndpointsREST

For Agents

Search openly-licensed images and audio across hundreds of millions of works, fetch details, related items, thumbnails, and licence metadata.

Connect the Openverse API (Creative Commons Catalog) to your agent

Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the Openverse API (Creative Commons Catalog), or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.

Install Jentic One Beta (Self-Hosted)

Jentic One Host machine

# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh

Agent machine

# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register       # connects your agent to your Jentic One instance

Jentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with Openverse API (Creative Commons Catalog) API.

Search public domain and Creative Commons images via /images with licence, source, and category filters

Search openly-licensed audio via /audio with similar filters

Retrieve detailed metadata for an image or audio item by identifier

Get related items for a given image or audio identifier

GET STARTED

Start building with Openverse API (Creative Commons Catalog) API

Explore with Jentic

View OpenAPI Document

Jentic publishes the only available OpenAPI document for Openverse API (Creative Commons Catalog), keeping it validated and agent-ready.

Openverse is a search engine for openly-licensed media — images and audio in the public domain or under Creative Commons licences. The REST API exposes search, detail, related items, thumbnails, oEmbed metadata, and source statistics for both images and audio, plus an OAuth2 application registration flow that grants higher rate limits via bearer tokens. Originally the Creative Commons Catalog API, Openverse aggregates more than 600 million openly-licensed works from sources like Wikimedia Commons, Flickr, and Smithsonian, and is maintained by the WordPress project.

Use Cases

Patterns agents use Openverse API (Creative Commons Catalog) API for, with concrete tasks.

★ License-Safe Image Search for Editorial Tools

Editorial CMS plugins and content tools can call /images with a query string and licence filter to surface only commercially-usable, share-alike, or attribution-only images. Each returned record includes the licence URL, attribution string, and source so the editor can drop a properly attributed asset into a draft. The /images/{identifier} endpoint then exposes the full metadata including original filename and creator.

GET /images?q=mountain+sunset&license=cc0,by&page_size=20 and return each image's url, attribution, and license fields

Open Audio Library for Podcasts and Apps

Podcast tools, education apps, and game studios needing freely-licensed background audio can search /audio with filters for licence, category (music, sound_effect), and length. Detail and waveform endpoints provide the data needed to render a usable preview before download. Aggregating across Wikimedia Commons, Jamendo, and other sources, Openverse covers material no single host catalogues alone.

GET /audio?q=ambient+forest&license=cc0&category=music&page_size=10 and return each track's url, attribution, and waveform_url

OAuth2 Application for Higher Rate Limits

Production integrations should register an OAuth2 application via POST /auth_tokens/register, then exchange the client_id and client_secret at POST /auth_tokens/token for a bearer token. Bearer tokens unlock higher rate limits than anonymous calls. /rate_limit returns the remaining quota in the current window so the integration can throttle before hitting the cap.

POST /auth_tokens/register with name, description, and email, then POST /auth_tokens/token with client_credentials to obtain a bearer token

AI Agent Open Media Discovery

An AI agent helping a user find license-safe imagery for a presentation can use Openverse through Jentic to filter by licence, attribution requirement, and source without managing OAuth flow. Jentic registers and refreshes tokens, dispatches /images or /audio searches, and returns structured JSON the agent can render with proper attribution.

Through Jentic, search 'find creative commons images', resolve to GET /images, and execute with q='climate change'&license=cc0

Key Endpoints

17 endpoints — openverse is a search engine for openly-licensed media — images and audio in the public domain or under creative commons licences.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

GET

/images

Search openly-licensed images

GET

/images/{identifier}

Get image details by identifier

GET

/images/{identifier}/thumb

Fetch the image thumbnail

GET

/audio

Search openly-licensed audio

GET

/audio/{identifier}

Get audio details by identifier

GET

/audio/{identifier}/waveform

Get the audio waveform data

POST

/auth_tokens/register

POST

/auth_tokens/token

Obtain a bearer token

GET

/images

Search openly-licensed images

GET

/images/{identifier}

Get image details by identifier

GET

/images/{identifier}/thumb

Fetch the image thumbnail

GET

/audio

Search openly-licensed audio

GET

/audio/{identifier}

Get audio details by identifier

Why though Jentic?

Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.

Credential isolation

Openverse OAuth2 client credentials are stored encrypted in the Jentic vault. Agents call /images, /audio, and other endpoints through Jentic without holding the raw client_secret, and bearer tokens refresh centrally.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search Jentic with intents like 'find creative commons images' or 'search openly licensed audio' and Jentic returns the matching Openverse operation with its parameter schema.

Time to first call

Direct Openverse integration: 2-4 hours including OAuth registration, token refresh, and rate-limit handling. Through Jentic: under 30 minutes — search, load, execute.

Related APIs

Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.

Complementary

Flickr API

Flickr is one of Openverse's upstream sources; the Flickr API exposes richer per-photo metadata and uploads.

Use Flickr directly when you need EXIF, comments, or user-level photo management; use Openverse for cross-source CC search.

Alternative

Freesound API

Freesound is a Creative Commons audio archive with its own search and download API.

Choose Freesound for sound effects and field recordings specifically; choose Openverse for unified CC media search across image and audio.

Complementary

SoundCloud API

SoundCloud hosts a wider audio catalogue, with mixed licensing — pair when CC-only is too restrictive.

Use SoundCloud when paid or non-CC audio is acceptable; use Openverse for license-safe-only workflows.

FAQs

Specific to using Openverse API (Creative Commons Catalog) API through Jentic.

What authentication does the Openverse API use?

Openverse supports unauthenticated access at lower rate limits and OAuth2 bearer tokens for elevated limits. Tokens are obtained by registering an application at /auth_tokens/register and exchanging credentials at /auth_tokens/token. Through Jentic, client credentials are stored encrypted in the vault and the bearer token is refreshed automatically.

Can I filter Openverse search results by license type?

Yes — both /images and /audio accept a license query parameter (e.g. cc0, by, by-sa) and a license_type parameter (commercial, modification). Each returned record includes the license, license_url, and attribution fields so downstream consumers can comply with the licence terms.

What are the rate limits for the Openverse API?

Anonymous requests are limited to a smaller per-IP window; OAuth2 bearer tokens raise the limit substantially. /rate_limit returns the remaining quota for the current window so an integration can throttle proactively rather than reacting to 429 responses.

How do I search for Creative Commons images through Jentic?

Search Jentic for 'search creative commons images', load the GET /images schema, and execute with q, license, and page_size parameters. Jentic returns structured JSON including licence and attribution fields per result.

Does the Openverse API include video search?

Not in the current spec — Openverse covers images and audio. Video is on the project roadmap but is not exposed by this v1 API. For video, look at YouTube Data API or Vimeo's API depending on your licensing needs.

How do I get a thumbnail for an Openverse image?

Call GET /images/{identifier}/thumb with the image's identifier. The response is the thumbnail bytes (an image), suitable for direct rendering in a UI without re-fetching the original full-resolution file.