When it comes to images on the internet, it’s always better to be safe than be sorry. Most photos on public domains such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others were created by others, they own that image. Therefore, it’s copyright protected. A Copyright protects original works of authorship. This includes literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works.
People might say, “Well I cited where I got the image from..” Yes it’s good to cite others’ work when you use it, but for images and creatives you must do more than just that. You need to ask the creator for permission.
Creative Commons
Creative Commons was founded in 2001 and is an organization that provides people with license free images and content. Creative commons makes it easier for everyone to share and use creative content. There are a few different types of licenses found on Creative Commons:
- Attribution CC BY – Allowed to use and share, you must though provide any attribute specified by the author.
- Attribution-NoDerivs – Allows to share and edit as long as it’s not used for commercial purposes.
- Attribution-ShareAlike – Allowed to share and edit as long as you attribute the word in the manner specified by the author.
- Attribution-NonCommercial – Allowed to share and edit as long as it’s not sued for commercial purposes.
- Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs – Allows to share as long as you do not edit or use it for commercial purposes.
A few websites that can be used to find Creative Commons images are
- Flickr
- Multicolor Search Lab
- Compfight
- Pixabay
I personally LOVE Canva here are a few great pics I pulled from there!
