Open Image Collections & Image Use Guide

Welcome to the OPEN IMAGE COLLECTIONS & IMAGE USE guide

This guide is to assist you in better understanding the various license agreements available when accessing images on the internet. Here you will find information on licencing, how to cite images for your papers and presentations, as well as an ever-growing list of image collections that have been reviewed by our Copyright Officer. 

Don’t forget to check out the related guides for similar topics and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Thanks, and enjoy!

image source: Elegant Themes, GPL <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>, via Wikimedia Commons

Disclaimer: We have done our best to label these collections appropriately but because Flickr, Google, and other search engines rely on web crawlers and user-generated content, there are sometimes errors in the labeling of usage rights.  It is your responsibility to do further research if you encounter an object you think maybe copyrighted (for example, if it has a watermark or says all rights reserved). All RRC Polytech Staff, Faculty and Students are required to comply with RRC Polytech Copyright Policy.

Glossary

Open Images: Images that are under an open license such as Creative Commons or that have fallen into the Public Domain that others can use their creative works in support of education.
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• Clip art: Pre-made images used to illustrate any medium. Clip art is used extensively and comes in many forms, both electronic and printed. However, most clip art today is created, distributed, and used in a digital form. Since its inception, clip art has evolved to include a wide variety of content, file formats, illustration styles, and licensing restrictions, clip art features are often included as part of creative software programs and packages. It is generally composed exclusively of illustrations (created by hand or by software) and does not include photography.
• Copyright: Copyright literally means the “right to copy” and generally refers to the exclusive right to produce or reproduce a work or any substantial part of one. In Canada, this right is enshrined in the Copyright Act.
• Creative Commons: An American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share.
• Creative Commons License: Plain language copyright licenses that give individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions so others can use their creative works in support of education and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share.
• Disclaimer: Any statement intended to specify or delimit the scope of rights and obligations that may be exercised and enforced by parties in a legally recognized relationship.
• Public Domain: The public domain consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable.
• Royalty-Free: material subject to copyright or other intellectual property rights that may be used without the need to pay royalties or license fees for each use, per each copy.
• Stock art / Photography: these are images intended for use by creative professionals and require payment and adherence to specific conditions and terms of use. They are found in reports, news media, advertising, and websites. They are abundant and available online through several stock art agencies, many of which sell both photographs and illustrations.
• Terms of Use: Legal agreements between a service provider and a person who wants to use that service. The person must agree to abide by the terms in order to use the offered service or material. Terms of use can also be merely a disclaimer.
• Derivatives: A derivative work is a work based on or derived from one or more already existing works. When you adapt or remix something created by someone else this is a derivative work.
• Share Alike: A layer in a creative commons licence that requires you to keep any derivative works (works that have been remixed or adapted from the original) under the same license terms as the original work.
• Attribution: Attribution, in copyright law, is acknowledgment as credit to the copyright holder or author of a work. this may be done using a formal citation or simply noting the creator of the work where it is used. For more information see of page on "How to Cite Images "

Is there anything missing from this list? Please let us know.