Creative Commons has launched a new search engine to help you find free-to-use images. CC Search, which lets you find images to use under a Creative Commons license, is currently in beta. Which means Creative Commons is actively seeking feedback from people like you.

Creative Commons already offers a search engine of sorts. However, all it really does is provide a link to other services such as Google, Flickr, and Pixabay. The new CC Search brings everything in-house, allowing you to scour multiple sources using a single interface.

Just One Percent of the Commons

The new CC Search is currently in beta, so Creative Commons is taking things slowly. At the time of writing, the new CC Search only covers around 10 million images, which is just one percent of the whole Creative Commons repository. The goal is to eventually cover the whole Commons.

The images you'll currently find through the new CC Search will come from Flickr, the Rijksmuseum, the New York Public Library, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As well as letting you search for images, the new CC Search lets you share lists, add tags, and save your searches. It also offers one-click attribution.

Providing a Front Door to the Commons

Writing on the Creative Commons Blog, Ryan Merkley explained:

"The current CC search tool is accessed by nearly 600,000 people every month — but we can do better. There is no 'front door' to the commons, and the tools people need to curate, share, and remix works aren’t yet available. We want to make the commons more usable, and this is our next step in that direction."

With this being a beta, Creative Commons is actively seeking feedback from interested parties. The plan is to "elicit discussion and conversation about the tool for its continued improvement," and your comments will likely shape development of the final product. To that end, Creative Commons has created a feedback form.

Do you use images released under a Creative Commons licence? If you weren't previously aware of Creative Commons, will you now use the new CC Search? What feedback would you give the Creative Commons developers? Please let us know in the comments below!

Image Credit: H. Michael Karshis via Flickr