Copyright, sourcing, selecting and using photographic images.
Using images in your work
Five ways to stay within copyright law.
1. You created the image yourself
2. You commission somebody to create the image (you have a release to use it)
3. You have purchased the rights to use an image from a royalty free picture/stock library
4. The image is in the public domain or under a Creative Commons license
5. The image is being presented as “fair use” as detailed in copyright law
Free to use images
There are a large number of free to use images. You can search Google for images that are copyright free, Flickr also has an option to search for images under the Creative Commons License. You need to be aware that even though images are free to use there may be some restrictions, such as an attribution and/or link back to the creator, or there will be restrictions of use, such as non-commercial or they cannot be edited or combine with other images.
Copyright FREE Websites
Below are links to copyright free Creative Commons CC0 (public domain) websites where images can be searched and downloaded to use in graphic design, website and user inter-face projects, but make sure you read what restrictions are applied to these images before using them.
Stokpic
The most exciting part of this project is the community surrounding Stokpic. Thousands of subscribers write to me all the time. Asking questions, giving words of encouragement and or course lot of requests.. http://stokpic.com/
Unsplashed
Unsplashed is a very popular FREE stock image site. Free (do whatever you want) high-resolution photos.10 new photos every 10 days. https://unsplash.com/
Pixabay
You can use any Pixabay image without attribution in digital and printed form, even for commercial applications.. https://pixabay.com
Unsplash.it Placeholders
Just put your image size (width & height) after our URL and you'll get a placeholder. https://unsplash.it/
Large Photos
Whether you are looking for pictures to an inspiring desktop background, an enchanting wallpaper, professional power point presentation, catchy website, or relaxing magazine, Large Photos is the place to search! Everything on our website is forever free! http://www.largephotos.net/
Magic Mock-ups
Recently lot of sites are launched that offer free, public domain, hi-res photos which are very useful for startups and other kind of projects. Other real-life mockup generator sites like place.it etc. may be too expensive for small startups and individuals. http://magicmockups.com/
StockSnap
StockSnap is the best place on the internet to find beautiful free stock photos.All photos uploaded to the site are released under Creative Commons - CC0 and do not require attribution. No more hassle trying to figure out whether you can use photos for commercial use and whether you need to provide attribution.
https://stocksnap.io/
Gratisography
Free high-resolution pictures you can use on your personal and commercial projects. Click on an image to download the high-resolution version. New awesome pictures added weekly! All pictures were photographed by Ryan McGuire and free of copyright restrictions.
http://www.gratisography.com/
Je Shoots
You can copy, modify, distribute and use the images, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission and without paying attribution.
http://jeshoots.com/
Public Domain Pictures
Public domain pictures offer a range of CC0 creative Commons images
Snap Wire Snaps
License and commission photos from 200,000 of the world's most talented photographers with 7 free CC0 beautiful photos every 7 days
http://snapwiresnaps.tumblr.com/
Pixels
Pexels provides high quality and completely free stock photos licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. All photos are nicely tagged, searchable and also easy to discover through our discover pages.
https://www.pexels.com/
More Free Stock Photos
Links to List of public domain CC0 images
Top 17 FREE resources65+ CC0 ResourcesCommercial Stock Photographs
Gettyimages
The idea with commercial stock images, is a designer can download a low resolution watermarked “comp" file to use in a draft design, once the client has signed off the project, the rights to use the image will be bought.
If you are a student, you can use commercial “comps” in your assignments, as long as you reference to, and explain your understanding of how these commercial stock transactions work. If you are working on a "paid for” project you would pass on the cost for buying the royalties to use an image onto your client
Getty Images is among the world’s leading creators and distributors of award-winning still imagery, video, music and multimedia products, as well as other forms of premium digital content, available through its trusted house of brands, including iStock© and Thinkstock©.
CIS Fair Use Legal Experts Answer Fair Use Questions - Stanford Center for Internet and Society
Overview of fair use and the copyright law. Fair use is what is what will be cited in academia when showing examples within a presentation etc. and also when people are reviewing creative work such as films.
Fair Use and Copyright: What's Fair, Appealing Claims, and Removing Strikes - Inbox Special
This video highlights the issues that Youtubers have when it comes to copyrighted material, even when working within fairuse YouTube copmres down on the side of caution, and will block and close down accounts they feel are infringing copyright.