Library Subject Guides
If you're creating something, you might often want to incorporate media that was made by somebody else.
Maybe you're needing to refer to an artwork and want to include an image of it in your writing. Perhaps a photo of a mountain is just what you need to underline your point, but you don't live anywhere near a mountain and have never taken a photo of one yourself. Or maybe you need some backing music for a video but you don't play an instrument…
Very often someone else will have already come up with something that might more than adequately suit your needs. And maybe you could use that.
But just because something is 'free to view' on the internet, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's free to re-use. Even an uncredited photo may actually be protected by that pesky old thing we call copyright.
On this page we'll look at sources of media that you may be able to reuse, and we'll consider the caveats that surround that reuse.
Most web search engines have an image search option, such as Google Images, Bing Images, Ecosia, and DuckDuckGo.
In all of the above examples, there's the option to filter results to show particular types of images. In Google and Bing these controls are hidden by default but you can turn them on in desktop view:
Typical filters include the type of image (photo, GIF, line drawing, transparent…), its size, and the dominant colour. But you can also filter by usage rights / licence type in all the above-mentioned tools. That means you can limit your search to just reusable images with Creative Commons or public domain licences.
If you're looking for reusable images, don't rely solely on the search filter — it's working from an algorithm and that algorithm may not be 100% accurate. Always double-check the webpage containing the image.
There's a wide range of free-to-use stock image websites out there. Here's just a selection:
Not everything on these sites will necessarily be free to use. Results will often include items that require a licencing fee, because a) nothing is ever simple, and b) these sites need to make money from somewhere. It will usually be pretty obvious once you come to downloading the image, if not before.
The University subscribes to a number of specialist media libraries and databases. Here's a selection of image sources we have access to:
Remember to pay close attention to the licencing information if you're wanting to reuse items from these databases.
The History of Art Subject Guide also has an impressive collection of links to image resources (some of them CC0) which is well worth a look:
As with images, search engines usually have a dedicated video search option, and there's generally the option to filter results to show particular types of video (typically filtering on things like duration, resolution, and date published). In Google and Bing these controls are hidden by default but you can turn them on in desktop view:
Some observations:
If you're looking for reusable videos, don't rely solely on the search filter — it's working from an algorithm and that algorithm may not be 100% accurate. Always double-check the webpage containing the video.
As with images, there are websites that collate free-to-use stock video...
Remember to pay close attention to the licencing information if you're wanting to reuse items from these databases.
The University subscribes to a number of specialist media libraries and databases. Here's a selection of video sources we have access to:
Remember to pay close attention to the licencing information if you're wanting to reuse items from these databases.
Audio is the poor relation when it comes to searching. There's no dedicated audio search filter in any of the major search engines, for instance. Obviously, streaming audio services like Spotify exist, but in terms of sourcing audio for academic or creative use, you'll generally have to rely on specific databases.
Here's a selection of stock audio sites that use Creative Commons licences or have similar free-to-use licencing options:
Remember to pay close attention to the licencing information if you're wanting to reuse items from these databases.
The University subscribes to a number of specialist media libraries and databases. Here's a selection of audio sources we have access to:
Remember to pay close attention to the licencing information if you're wanting to reuse items from these databases.
Creative Commons (CC) is a system of copyright licencing that allows a creator to retain their ownership of a creation while also granting the public limited rights to share and reuse that creation.
While conventional copyright puts a lot of restriction on what we're able to do with certain media, Creative Commons makes it much more possible for us to reuse certain things, and the licencing options help to make it really clear what we can and cannot use for a given purpose.
There are some key components to a CC licence, and these can be used in different combinations according to the amount of freedom the creator of a work wishes to grant:
There's also CC0 which enables a creator to give up their copyright and put the work into worldwide public domain, enabling anyone to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, with no conditions. Such items would be considered public domain and you can use them without attribution (though it can still be nice to attribute them, especially if your giving references anyway).
If a work was licenced as CC BY-NC-SA then you'd only be able to reuse it for non-commercial purposes (you couldn't make money from whatever you're making – NC) but you'd need to credit the creator (BY), and you'd need to licence your adaptation of the work under the same licence (SA).
If something was licenced as CC BY-ND then, so long as you credited the creator (BY), you could reuse it commercially but you couldn't adapt it in any way (making changes to an image, using audio as part of a video, etc. – ND).
If something was CC0, you could pretty much do what you liked, within the confines of the wider law.
The following image of Monet's 'The Water Lily Pond' is licensed for reuse by the National Gallery under the terms of a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND Licence (fully credited and used for noncommercial purposes only, without further modification). The image caption needs to provide full attribution, identifying the rights-holder and licensing terms used at source.
For a formal piece of academic work you'll want to use your departmental referencing style (we've gone with Chicago, as used by History of Art):
A lot of the time you can provide much shorter credits than this. Things you'll definitely need to include are the title, author, source, and licence (which with a CC image could use the abbreviations we set out above). Take a look at these recommended practices for more help:
Even if an item you want to reuse is under a hard copyright with no Creative Commons exemptions, there may still be options…
UK copyright law permits you to 'quote' media provided that the quoted material is relevant to your discussion or critique (not just used for decorative purposes), and that you have used no more than is required for your specific purpose.
Legitimate use of other people's copyrighted media for teaching activities (such as lecture slides) may also be legally defensible in the UK as "Illustration for Instruction" but such material should not be shared outside of the classroom (see our Copyright law explained guide for more of this sort of thing).
You'll also need to abide by 'fair dealing': your use of the media must have no impact on the market for the original — for instance you might ensure this with an image by cropping it or using it at a low resolution.
When reusing somebody else's work you must fully acknowledge the rights-holder; the captions for any media you reproduce should provide information about the item and its source. You should also identify the rights-holder (for example © University of York), reiterate any copyright statements or licensing terms indicated at the source (for example "All rights reserved", or "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License"), and state whether you have obtained any necessary permissions to use the image where relevant.
Obviously, media you've created yourself come with a lot less risk. However, life is never simple...
Images of artworks are not straightforward. Although an artist's copyright may have expired (usually 70 years after their death), a photograph of an artwork might have additional rights associated with the photograph itself, and some galleries may take this approach to restrict reuse of their digital images.
Even if you took the photograph of the artwork yourself, the gallery may have a 'no photographs' policy, or a photography policy which doesn't exempt educational use.
You might think that a photo or video you've taken of a landscape or city scene would be perfectly safe to reuse. But that's not always the case. In some locations there may be restrictions on where you can take a photo or how a photo can be used (for instance, you're not supposed to publish a photo taken on National Trust land without permission), and in some countries (including France, Italy, and Greece) there are legal restrictions on the reproduction of copyright material sited in public. These restrictions might even extend to buildings (take a look at Wikipedia's article on Freedom of panorama for some fascinating examples).
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