How to find copyright free images on Flickr.

1. HOWTO FIND
COPYRIGHT-FREE
IMAGES ON

2. Flickr houses billions of photos and while it might be tempting to take any photo off
of Flickr for your own use… know that many of the images are under copyright
protection and it might be illegal to use them.

3. Usually under the date, the copyright status of the image will be posted. In this
picture, it says “All rights reserved” which means the copyright holder has maintained
all rights surrounding use of the image. In other words, you can’t use it without
permission from the user.

4. SO HOW CANYOUTELL
WHICH IMAGESARE
FREETO USE?

5. Let’s try a search for ‘ocean’:

6. Before you starting picking an image you like, to find images that are not copyright
restricted, you can narrow down the image results by license type.

7. Select the licenses that aligns with how you want to use the image:
Any license – will give you all image results
All creative commons* – Images that have different Creative Commons licenses
Commercial use allowed* – Images can be used for profit purposes but not modified
modified
Modifications allowed* – Images can be modified, but not used commercially
Commercial use & mods allowed* – Images can be modified, used commercially
No known copyright restrictions – Images are in the public domain**
U.S. Government works – Images are provided by a government agency and as a
government work are not subject to copyright in the United States
*All of these various licenses used requireATTRIBUTION, meaning you cite the creator
or photographer of the work
**Public Domain means the work now belongs to the public and is not subject to any
copyright restrictions.

8. Let’s pick “No known copyright restrictions”

9. Again, this means that images that come up have been marked as public domain
and can be shared, modified, and used for profit and non-profit purposes.

10. When we click on this photo, for example, we see it is marked as in the public domain
and would be free to use.

11. Images under the other licenses might say “some rights reserved.”To learn more about
what you can and can’t do, you can click on the text to see what is allowed.

12. For example, when I clicked on
the “Some rights reserved” for
the image on the previous
slide, I was taken to the
Creative Commons license
that they creator has applied
to it.
This particular licenses allows
you to share the image, but
not for commercial use and
not modified. It also requires
you to credit the photographer
of the image.

13. IFYOU ARE STILL UNSURE IF
YOUR ARE USING IMAGES
ETHICALLY OR LEGALLY,
COMETO O’KELLY.
ASK A LIBRARIAN.