What pictures on the internet can I freely copy and use?
68My favorite place to find free pictures is from Wikipedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/ Find the picture or media you want, and read the "permissions".
Also do a search on "CopyLeft", which is a play on the word "copyright".(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft),
"Flickr" is a site where people can upload their own photos. They have an option to flag them as "copyleft".
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/copyleft/
So in photos there, that are flagged with "CopyLeft", are availble for you. I have included a picture of the CopyLeft symbol below. It's basically a the letter "C" backwards, drawn in a circle.
I use these types of free pictures in the tutorials that I created. I would suggest staying away from all our pictures, unless you are willing to pay a small fee for a "royalty free" or "stock photo". Any picture on a "normal" website, cannot be used without that website's permission (unless they have expressly granted permission). Although it maybe unlikely that you would be sued, the fines and penalties for using a picture without permission could potentially be very steep.
Also - don't get mixed up between "CopyRight" and "CopyWrite". Copywriting is the process of writing good text, typically for a sales letter or advertising. Copyright is the process of legally protecting any work you have written.
I took a copyright class in law school back in the 1980s, but things have changed a lot since then. I have yet to study in much detail the new Digital "Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)", passed by congress in 1996. See this Wikopedia article for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA
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Thank You very useful information
Hope to read more from you
Thanks a lot this helps me very much for my site
Thanks I'm new here and was trying to figure out where I'd get the photos I'm going to need for my hubs
That was helpful but what about the use of clipart? I often find images that I can use with just a few "tweeks" in Photoshop. Is this a free option or are there copyright laws attached to them as well?
thanks,this is informational
thanks i like this article,very informative
Flickr also has a ton of creative commons stuff (over 150 million photos). Learn about the various types of CC licenses before using it, but for the most part it can all be used.
Most of it cannot be used for commercial purposes (non-commercial, though over 50 million allow commercial use), require attribution (mentioning who took the photo), and share alike (that derivative works cannot have other licenses).
Thanks, that's hugely useful.
Hi Neal, I'm making a site for myself, and it has a page ust for photo's. I'd like to ask you if through the site you gave on commons.wikipedia, Is it free for use on my site? or i may be in deep shit if i posted it there. I planned to place google adsense also, to keep my site running. Your advice would be appreciated. thanks
Pls tell me can we use the photos from wikipedia in any of our magazine in india or not ????
thank you so much for this article. You saved my life
I was really upset to find my images, from a family collection of old photos, had been lifted from Flickr and used in a glossy magazine. I bought a mag, opened it up, to find my own photos staring back at me!
The ''author'' had basically stolen them from Flickr, despite my settings set to ''Copyright'' and ''not for copying in any way''...such theft of special images [special to me, and my family] is not on, so well done for trying to clarify what can and cannot be used.
its good to see an article that rellyuhelps us thank you
I want to know if I could copy picture "Western Blue Bird" with rainbow for my Facebook cover and Facebook profile picture?
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C-Lee 4 years ago
Thanks, this is helpful!