Blogs and websites look great when they are embellished with images so it is tempting to quickly add a photo or drawing that we like through an Internet image search. However, there are two considerations: 1) locating the actual source of the image for crediting and 2) determining whether it is copyrighted and can be posted for public viewing. I recently used Google Image Search to locate a Peer Review image
I found this image (deliberated blurred because it is copyrighted as explained below) and wondered who was the original creator and could it be posted publicly on the web (crediting the cartoonist). It looked great for the Teaching with Canvas page: Student Peer Review .
So where did it come from (reverse image search)?
I went to images.google.com and searched by image (AKA reverse image search), uploading the image file that I found and downloaded.
In the search results: there were hundreds of copies on the web with several Creative Commons references to this popular Flickr user but the user is not the original creator and the image in their Flickr photostream is no longer to be found.
Fortunately, after a little digging I found one site that referenced the creator: James Yang in the actual filename and then tracked down his website. After emailing Mr. Yang and confirming he was indeed the person who created the cartoon, I contacted his publicist who said that the image was copyrighted and required a usage fee for publishing. So I searched for other relevant images, though Yang’s was the best of the bunch, and settled on two images combined here.
Finding free images
- As many of you know the process of searching for relevant images to post on our public web pages is not quite so easy as a simple Google search. There are some great sites and searches, though, that may provide what you are looking for:
- The University of Pennsylvania has perhaps the most comprehensive resource on finding images in the Public Domain or through Creative Commons (some restrictions apply)
- Pixabay.com includes free photos (no attribution necessary), although some may come from Shutterstock, which are copyrighted. The collection of free photos is extensive and many are available in high resolution.
- You can search through Flickr’s Creative Commons or Google’s Images search by Usage Rights (e.g. labeled for noncommercial reuse).
Regardless of whether you find images in the public domain or Creative Commons it is good practice to credit the source with a link back to the original site.
Google Images Update
In Images search
Google removed the View Image [1] button, which allowed immediate display and easy download of images. (Google removed the button in response to a partnership with Getty Images , which accused Google of creating galleries of “high-resolution, copyrighted content")
To download the image users are encouraged to click Visit [1] to view the image in context with the web page. However, you can download the image directly by right-clicking on the image [2] and choosing Save Image as …
Comments
Post a Comment