Friday, April 10, 2015

Find Free Images to Use

Copyright can make working with online images a hassle.  When you find an image you want to use, you have to locate the source (difficult), get permission to use it (more difficult), and then properly attribute the source.  If you have an image you really want, you can contact the person who created it and ask for permission to use it.  (Unless you are a non-profit, it is helpful if you express willing to pay a small amount to use it.)  You could also try to claim fair use (a copyright exception for using small amounts of a work for educational purposes), but the laws surrounding fair use are so complex that it can be difficult to ever be certain that your use would qualify if brought into question.

Instead of going to all that work just to use one image, consider using images licensed under the Creative Commons.  These are images that the user of the work has granted permission to use under specific circumstances.  Some allow for commercial or non-commercial use, and some permit modifications while others do not allow for any changes.  You will still need to credit the owner of the work, but you know that you can use them if you stay within the permissions of the license.

One great place to start is the Wikimedia Commons.  This site allows you to search for images and easily view the permissions granted by the owner.  The license will appear as something like "CC BY-ND".  If you are not familiar with the Creative Commons licenses, the types of available licenses are listed at the end of this page.  You can also do an image search on Google, Yahoo, or Bing.  All three have options to filter with results that you can reuse, but be sure to confirm the image is labelled correctly by going to the site where it was posted.

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