Com 4550 ResComStudies

Finding Images

There are many ways to find images that you can use without worrying about copyright restrictions.  The important ones are:

Find and use images with a Creative Commons license. Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools. Their copyright licenses provide a simple, standardized way to give the public permission to share and use creative work — on conditions of the creator's choice. CC licenses let creators easily change copyright terms from the default of “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.” Creative Commons licenses are not an alternative to copyright. They work alongside copyright and enable creators to modify copyright terms to best suit their need

Use images under the Fair Use provision.   A provision in copyright law that allows for the use of copyrighted works under some specific circumstances and for particular purposes such as criticism, comment, scholarship, or research. Fair use is determined by the following four factors (from Chapter 1, Section 107 of the Copyright Law):

• the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
• the nature of the copyrighted work
• the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
• e use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work

Use Images that are in the Public Domain. When a work is not covered by copyright (because the copyright term has expired, the creator has released the work, or the work was never copyrighted) it is in the public domain. The public then holds the rights to the work.

Use Images from Subscription Databases.  As a member of the Trevecca Community, you are entitled to use materials that are licensed by Waggoner Library.  Many of these products contain images,  If you need images for an assignment that will exist in a physical form or will exist in a virtual form inside Canvas, you can freely use the copyrighted images in these databases.  The subscription costs cover the licensing fees.  However, if your project will exist on the free web, you may not use these images.

Copyright concerns fundamentally affect the creative choices media makers believe they can make. As part of its mission to provide educational support to creatives in media that matters, CMSI develops tools to better understand how to employ fair use, the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment, under some circumstances. Filmmakers, journalists, teachers, visual arts professionals, librarians, archivists and more all have collaborated with CMSI to clarify how fair use works with their most common practices.