Finding Free Images To Use Legally

Published on May 17, 2014 By DrJBHL In Personal Computing

The ‘But it’s on the Internet, so it’s free’ questions always come up. The fact it’s on the internet doesn’t mean it’s free, or that you can use it any way you please.

“There's a simple solution: search for images "licensed for reuse" -- images that you may legally use. Both Google and Bing may be set to show images with this license. The license exists thanks to Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization founded in 2001. The organization promotes legal sharing of created work, and the creators specify reuse terms and conditions.” - TechRepublic

There’s a good way to search out the ones which are free to use, free to use and modify…well, there are 6 licenses with increasing restrictions on usage… is with Google Apps and CreativeCommons.

On CreativeCommons, the least restrictive is “Free to use with attribution”, the most requires attribution and prohibit both the creation of derivative works and commercial use, and you can learn about them here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/

There’s a really good article about it here: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/four-ways-to-find-free-images-to-use-legally-with-google-apps/#ftag=RSS56d97e7

This is just to help you in your search for usable images. If you upload images and artwork to CreativeCommons, you’ll even run into their licensing tool to help you create the proper licenses for your work.

WC enforces the policy that IP (intellectual property) is sacrosanct…if you’re in doubt about an image, just ask Jafo or the other Gallery Mods. If you use an image not of your own making, you have to have the license included in the zip along with the image/s, unless it’s fan art. Nothing new about that.

I hope the Gallery Moderators will chime in. I’m only bringing you awareness of a tool available to you in your searches, and simplifying (hell, over simplifying) the rules of the game.

I’ve also tried to centralize some tips and rules governing uploads/moderation, etc. here:

Sources:

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/four-ways-to-find-free-images-to-use-legally-with-google-apps/#ftag=RSS56d97e7

https://forums.wincustomize.com/326043/page/1/

https://www.wincustomize.com/upload-guidelines

https://forums.wincustomize.com/319604/page/1/#3010562

Comments (Page 2)

Stanley Tarrant

on Mar 31, 2015

Jafo

reply 13

Cars of the 'class' of Aston Martins have their engine builder credited via a plaque in the engine bay...so that analogy doesn't fit totally, either...

Cool, but what about the admin clerk who paid the bills to keep the lights on so the engine builder could build the engine? Etc., etc., unless the engine builder was by him-her self

Stanley Tarrant

on Mar 31, 2015

Jafo

reply 15

Oh, and most of just about every car you'll find native to the US would only end up with 'build credits' like R2D2 and C3PO, et al. Humans don't get a look in. That's why Motown is bankrupt...

Ahhhhh yes, the good old production fallacy. More production must mean less employment.

Weird, I suppose I could pay 50 people to cut my grass with scissors over several weeks or just grab a lawn mower and do it myself in an afternoon. Why aren't all the grass snippers protesting the modern gas lawn mower?

Jafo

on Mar 31, 2015

Your quote functioning is screwed...

However, there are far bigger issues on this planet than the imagined man-hours involved in listing a film's credits.

On a similar vein...compare the man-hours involved in creating a crossword puzzle....and THEN calculate the LOST PRODUCTIVITY of all those attempting to solve it...and often in 'work hours'.

You know, the last Stardock game I installed I only did so to check out the credits...."oh look...there's someone I know....or someone I've met..." Stardock's games generally are not my cup of tea. My interests are elsewhere...

Jafo

on Mar 31, 2015

Stanley Tarrant

reply 17

Ahhhhh yes, the good old production fallacy. More production must mean less employment.

No, more robotic production means more production of robots. It does NOT automatically follow on to more car production...or more employment in the car industry...or any other such relevance to Detroit/where-ever.

Jafo

on Mar 31, 2015

Stanley Tarrant

reply 17

For all you know [or care] they just might be...

Stanley Tarrant

on Mar 31, 2015

Jafo

reply 18

Your quote functioning is screwed...

However, there are far bigger issues on this planet than the imagined man-hours involved in listing a film's credits.

On a similar vein...compare the man-hours involved in creating a crossword puzzle....and THEN calculate the LOST PRODUCTIVITY of all those attempting to solve it...and often in 'work hours'.

You know, the last Stardock game I installed I only did so to check out the credits...."oh look...there's someone I know....or someone I've met..." Stardock's games generally are not my cup of tea. My interests are elsewhere...

- Why are you threatening my quoting? What did it ever do to you?

- Never said anyting about the magnitude of the issue. I agree that something like genocide in Africa is a bigger issue.

- What people do in their spare time is their business. They are off the clock and therefore not being paid.

- Man hours involved in creating a cross word puzzle is well spent if it leads to high entertainment value and reasonable profit, as it must. Man hours involved in entertainment counts as productivity in the economy. Never said man hours allocated to the entertainment industry like those allocated in Stardock to make awesome video games, was wasted or stupid. I appreciate those man hours allocated from you and other at Stardock!!! What I am postulating is that man hours given specifically to credit production might be stupid

- When galciv3 is released with full release of credits to go with the game, I will ask on the forums to honestly tell me who X was and say no cheating. People will likely go dig in the credits and cheat, but if an honest survey were done, I am not sure if one person tells me who the admin cleark or some other random credit at Stardock was.

ElanaAhova

on Aug 17, 2015

Jafo

reply 20

Quoting Stanley Tarrant,

reply 17

For all you know [or care] they just might be...

Actually, Luddites of one flavor or another are a part of each change/upgrade in production cycles. part of the human cost of 'progress' is some people lost their jobs, livelihoods, dignity, etc. So lets just *snip* this in the bud ...

DrJBHL

on Aug 17, 2015

And to think...I wrote the post to help folks stay out of trouble, and feel good that they're playing by the rules...not to mention keeping to the submission guidelines of WC.

Jafo

reply 3

One of the BIGGEST issues Moderators have is with mis-interpretation of a source site's T.O.U.

'Free for personal use' does not always allow redistribution - but sometimes it does....when you read further.

Also....BIG POINT...

If the 'source' site has a comment along the lines of 'all these images are free....la...la...la...but if one of these is yours and you wish it removed please contact us.....etc...' then you CANNOT use ANYTHING from that site.

NOTHING.

Reason....they only THINK they are free to use....but clearly did NOT source them from their legitimate owners and thus cannot guarantee their authority to release.

Indeed...those sites with weak or non-existent Moderation sell their advertising based on the fact that most artists actually spend their time creating their work, not cruising looking for violators of permission to use vs. permission to distribute for non-commercial vs. commercial usage.

That's far from playing by Hoyle.

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