Anyone* can use any of the following without obtaining permission from the copyright holder:
*Double check the licensing agreement on any Creative Commons(CC) works. Some CC licenses carry additional restrictions such as non-commercial use only.
The Creative Commons organization provides a set of licenses that gives copyright holders a way to automatically grant permission to others to use their creative work. These licenses are applied to many types of media including:
The copyright holder has a variety of licenses to choose from with different sets of restrictions ranging from least restrictive (Creative Commons 0) which waives all rights to the work, to the most restrictive (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs) which requires you to give credit to the original creator, bans commercial use, and doesn't allow any alterations.
When you locate a Creative Commons work you'd like to use, click on the license link to find out about the specific licensing restrictions. You may also use a search tool like Flickr's image search to find images with the specific license type you prefer.
Most Creative Commons licenses require you to give credit to the creator in a citation format that provides details such as the creator's name/username, title of the work, and URL.
Example Scenario
I want to include a photo in my e-portfolio. None of my personal photos will work for this example so I decide to use a Creative Commons image. I find the perfect photo via the CC Search on the Creative Commons website. I upload the photo and provide attribution to the creator.
“Bert's Student Study Lounge, Shapiro Library” by
University of Michigan Medical School Information Services is licensed under CC BY 2.0
In this case, I'm following the Creative Commons licensing agreement by providing attribution below the image that cites the title of the photo, the photo owner, and the type of Creative Commons license, as well as a link back to the original source.
CC0 ("no rights reserved") and the Public Domain are two separate concepts but allow you to use a created work without obtaining permission or giving attribution.
If someone has labeled their work CC0, they've chosen to waive all copy rights including the right to attribution.
Older works may have entered the Public Domain. Some may have been created before the concept of copyright existed (like Shakespeare's works) or may have entered the Public Domain when their owner's copyright expired. For example, Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit entered the Public Domain in 2014 though some adaptations/illustrations, etc. may still be covered by copyright law. For information regarding U.S. Copyright expiration guidelines, please consult the U.S. Copyright Office's website.
If you'd like to use videos, pictures, etc. that do not fall under open licenses or copyright-free scenarios, it is best to link to the page where you can find the item rather than copy or embed the content into your ePortfolio.
Content Type | Solution |
Standard YouTube Licensed Video |
Provide a link to the video's URL instead of embedding the video. If the video was created by someone else, it's considered their creative work even if you're in the video. |
Photo on someone else's Flickr page |
Provide a link to the photo rather than uploading the image to your own site. If the photo was created by someone else, it's considered their creative work even if you are the subject of the photo. |
News Story |
Provide a link to the story. For example, if you were mentioned in an article on the Orlando Sentinel and you want to highlight that, link to the Orlando Sentinel's story URL rather than copying and pasting the text of the story into your portfolio. |
Works produced by the federal government are not typically subject to copyright law. Many works produced by the federal government are in the public domain.