BISB Physical Geography: Images

In most countries, there are copyright laws which say that the person who creates something, owns it. If we are using copyrighted material for research or educational purposes we are allowed as long as we take into account the following:

The use of the material is for non-commercial educational or research purposes.
The material is an original work (for the most part).
The amount of the material that is copied is "reasonable".
The use of the material will not affect the potential market for selling the original material.

A lot of that is kind of vague and confusing. Is there a better way to get images for presentations, research papers, or other projects?

Yes, actually.

You just have to know where to look and how to determine if an image is copyrighted and if it is copyrighted, then, what type of copyright it has.

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1. Public Domain Images

These are images that are owned by the public. These are images that are so old that they are no longer protected by original copyright or they are pictures taken by the government. Since Public Domain images belong to the public (that means you) you can do whatever you want with them except claim them as your own creation.

Here is an example of finding a Public Domain image from a link at the bottom of the Nile Wikipedia article. Wikipedia is a great source for Public Domain images.

2. Creative Commons and other forms of alternative licensing.

Both of these allow you to use their images but they require attribution (telling who the creator is). Below you will see an explanation of the different types of Creative Commons licenses. The "Attribution" license on the left gives the user the most freedom in what they can do with the image.

Here is the easiest way to access images with alternative licensing - use www.Flickr .com

On the results page, select "advanced search".

Then fill out the advanced search information and click "search" again.

To get the really great photos, the ones that people have marked as their favorite or the ones that have generated a lot of comments:

Then select one of the thumbnails that you like to get a better look at it and to figure out what type of Creative Commons licensing the image has.

Here you will find all the details of what you can and cannot do with the image.

There are several different types of Creative Commons licenses but ALL of them can be used as they are for academic/non-commercial use.

And ALL of them require ATTRIBUTION.

How do you give attribution? Easy, like this...

Mesa Arch by Chris Willis on Flickr CC

You should try to find the creator's full name but if that is not possible, then their Flickr username is acceptable. Provide links to the following:

the exact location of the image
the creator's photostream on Flickr
the Creative Commons licensing information

What if there is a picture that you really want to use but it is copyrighted?