Safely Using Creative Commons Licensed Images

You’ve made it this far before, or you’re working on your first article. Right now, I am three steps into the process of putting a story together to submit to a publication or self-publish.

• Title
• Subtitle
• Main Image

If you want to be sure you’re properly complying with the creative commons licensing requirements, it’s important to read the licensing. You don’t have to be a legal whiz to understand the licensing. If you want to make it simpler, I’m going to show you an option to do that, and then go into the licensing.

The link to Openverse will take you to WordPress and open up a page where you can search for images.

https://wordpress.org/openverse/search/?q=Aliens&license=pdm

Notice the search bar at the top. For fun, I typed in aliens. There are numerous options that came up, but that’s not the most important part.

After reading about a college project that resulted in a $5,000 demand notice because of the improper use of an image that was licensed through creative commons, the question of being sure arose. We want to be sure that we’re handling the images properly. Notice the box on the right side where you have the option Use Commercially through Creator going downward.

You’ll notice that I clicked on Public Domain Mark. After doing that I clicked on the question mark. Public domain images are so open to us that they don’t require attribution to the creator, and sometimes aren’t going to identify the creator. Medium will require attribution, but for the purpose of the article, this was really easy to get into, click on, and understand.

If you get the image from Wikimedia Commons, how can you tell if the image is safe to use?

When you’re looking around in Wikimedia Commons for images, they’ve made it simple enough that anyone can avoid a demand for payment. The image I chose for this seemed appropriate. It’s someone taking a photo. Now we might someday want to use that photo in a story, so how could we determine if it’s safe?

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The link takes you to Creative Commons and will tell you exactly what you’re free to do with the image and how to do it correctly. This image is available to copy and redistribute in any medium or format.

• Share: copy and redistribute in any medium or format
• Adapt: remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially

Remember the terms of the license. This is where people get caught up and end up at risk of losing thousands.

• Attribution-You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
• ShareAlike-if you remix, transform or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

Lastly, I would recommend taking the time to read the actual licenses. Creative commons publishes a summary for us to have a basic understanding. But, if you want to really know your stuff and wow your fellow creators, check out the actual license for each level of creative commons license, at least once. That’s also easily found but in typical legal rhetoric. It’s found in the smaller print above where it says, “you are free to.”

Takeaways

Starting this, I wondered how hard it was to get into trouble using creative commons licensed images. Honestly, it should be hard. Creative commons has made it as easy as anyone could ask. All we have to do is look into the license, which sites already put there for us, click on the license, and read the summary. So, with that in mind, don’t find yourself on the receiving end of a $5,000 demand letter if you’re putting together a project, an article, a story, or need an image for your work. It takes just a little bit of time and will save you a whole lot of headaches if you adhere to 3 simple steps.

• Find your image
• Check the license
• Comply with the requirements