Related Resources
General Guidance Regarding Copyright
Just because an image or sound is "available" on the Web does not mean that you can freely use that image or sound.
- Does the source where you found the file own all the rights to it and have the right to grant others permission to use the file?
- What is your intended use of the file?
Unless you can identify specific permission for your intended use already posted on the source, you should assume that you'll need to request permission.
Digital Image Rights Computator (Visual Resources Association)
An example of a clear statement about permissions appears on the Social Explorer website: Terms & Conditions of Use for Publicly-Accessible Materials for Non-Subscribers. For example, their content may be made available to "the audience members at a scholarly or educational presentation, lecture, seminar, or similar activity conducted by you (via displays and print hand outs only)." "Content may not be incorporated into an unrestricted database or website."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Terms & Conditions page provides answers to questions such as: May I put images or text from www.metmuseum.org on a file server at my school or museum? on my personal website?
The Library of Congress' Prints & Photographs Division provides Copyright and Other Restrictions That Apply to Publication/Distribution of Images: Assessing the Risk of Using a P&P Image.
Wikipedia provides an Image Use Policy.
YouTube provides Copyright information, including:
- Copyright Tips
- Using Some Copyrighted Content in Your Videos
- Permission to Use Videos?
Google Help provides information about Usage Rights, including information about usage rights filters in their advanced search pages.
Who do you contact to obtain rights to reproduce images?
- WATCH - Writers Artists & Their Copyright Holders"a database of copyright contacts for writers, artists, and prominent figures in other creative fields."
- Artists Rights Society"represents the intellectual property rights interests of over 50,000 visual artists and estates of visual artists from around the world (painters, sculptors, photographers, architects and others)"
- Art Resource"the world’s largest photo archive of fine art, offers a range of material from prehistoric times to the present. We carry the works of almost every major museum in Europe, and function as the official rights and permissions representative for many institutions in the United States and abroad"
Search for open access / Creative Commons images
- Flickr Creative Commons This link opens in a new window"Many Flickr users have chosen to offer their work under a Creative Commons license, and you can browse or search through content under each type of license."
- Openverse This link opens in a new windowOpenverse is a tool that allows openly licensed and public domain works to be discovered and used by everyone.
- Google Images This link opens in a new windowAfter searching for your keyword
- Select Tools
- Select the Usage rights dropdown
- - Select "Creative Commons licenses" - Creative Commons Search This link opens in a new windowFind content you can share, use and remix.
"Please note that search.creativecommons.org is not a search engine, but rather offers convenient access to search services provided by other independent organizations."
ccMixter (music) -- Europeana (media) -- Flickr (media) -- Google (web) -- Google Images (image) -- Jamendo (music) -- Nappy (image) -- Open Clip Art Library (image) -- OpenGameArt (media) -- Openverse (media) -- Sketchfab (3d model) -- SoundCloud (music) -- Thingiverse (3d model) -- Vimeo (video) -- Wikimedia Commons (media) -- YouTube (video)
