CC Search (Copyright free images)

from CC Search 

keyword =business meeting

I am often asked to recommend a website to go to for Copyright free images. The Electronic Library at Cardiff Met offers many links to image databases  that we recommend, some (marked with a black or a green copyright symbol)  like Bridgeman Education and Visual Arts Data Service offer copyright free images for educational use.

 I can also recommend a single page to which you can navigate on the internet which will allow you to search a whole selection of different image databases ...not just images of art and design... made available under a  Creative Commons licence.

Creative Common licences all offer, as minimum, permission to copy so long as the image is marked clearly with details of who first created it (attribution). To learn more about Creative Commons licences (which are voluntarily  applied by creators to their works and can apply to text, images , music and all copyrighted materials) you should go here.
To search for all those Creative Commons licensed images  go here. Enter a keyword and select a source to search from the range offered ( various interesting websites ) results will bring back Creative Commons licenced images, moving images and sound.

Copyright and images-advice sheet from the Intellectual Property Office

Apollo and Allegory of Painting, from the Loves of the Gods
Giulio Bonasone (Italian, active Rome and Bologna, 1531–after 1576) 
from the  Metropolitan Museum of Art 


With Flickr, Facebook and Instagram all becoming such a big part of everyday lives, people can often forget their legal responsibilities when using images and photos online. 

In order to ensure consumers have a better understanding of copyright law the government has launched a ‘copyright notices service’. 

The first notice published today, provides guidance about things to be aware of when uploading and using images on the internet. This includes advice for situations where you want to use photos taken by a professional photographer or what you need to consider before uploading images  to social media sites .

Copyright notice #1 can be found here: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/c-notice-201401.pdf

Google Images taken to task

CEPIC, the Centre of the Picture Industry, submitted a formal antitrust complaint against Google’s use of third-party images before the European Commission on November 8th 2013.The complaint was supported by an unprecedented coalition of European and US trade associations representing thousands of photographers and picture agencies worldwide.

The complaint addresses Google’s various unauthorized uses of third-party images in its horizontal Web Search and its specialized services, in particular Google Images. Google increasingly uses on-line images without the rightholders’ consent, sometimes even against their explicit wishes. Since the redesign of Google Images in January 2013, the situation got worse: Google presents images in full size and high resolution on its site and enables users to download them without ever having to click through to the original website hosting the image.

According to CEPIC members, 85% of pictures found online by visual search systems are unlawful copies and 80% of those illegal images have been spread through search engines such as Google Images. By presenting images out of the context of their source page, without information on the author and a hardly visible copyright note, the new design of Google Images significantly increases this problem.

The picture industry would like an adequate balance between Google’s use of their content and the benefits they receive in return, in particular traffic on their websites. 

read a fuller version of this story here

For students Google images provides quick reference points for images. The ease of reuse of other people’s creations on the web is leading to some content creators and rights owners, such as the major image libraries, taking steps to protect copyright by using sophisticated image-matching robots to crawl the web and find where their images are being used without permission.

In the past 2 or 3 years many individuals, businesses and institutions, including Universities , have found themselves being issued with large bills for the use of such material on their websites without permission.

 For quality sites which append trustworthy  information Cardiff Met Library provides links within its Electronic Library. Excellent sites include Tate  Art and Artists, V&A Collections, MOMA NY,  Google Cultural Institute,  NYPL, Ubuweb (copyright clearance on this site is not certain) and databases for which we pay to have access to copyright cleared images such as Bridgeman Education and Worth Global Style Network

is pinning OK?

Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, loops7


JiscLegal is a great support to Education when dealing with issues of copyright especially those coming up in the digital arena. It exists to 'give Legal Guidance for ICT Use in Education, Research and External Engagement'. The latest advice sheet on issues arising out of pinterest and image sharing websites is fabulously clear.
Pinterest
According to Mediabistro, users are spending more time on Pinterest than Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn combined. Recent statistics show this social networking site has just reached 48.7 million users.

Post Modern work of art or Copyright Violation? Richard Prince in court

Richard Prince sometimes takes photos and changes them. The original is usually easily recognizable. This activity tends to break Copyright (if the creator of the original has not been dead for 70 years) and infringe the Moral Right that dictates an artist has the moral right to be recognized as the author of their work (Prince never acknowledges his sources) . In fact in a recent court case versus the photographer of the Rastafarian above Prince declared himself positively un-interested in any original that he takes and changes. His defence was that he needs other people’s works as raw material to "critique, dismantle, [and] transform..."  

Read more here

The Design and Artists Copyright Society want to hear your views on artists' rights

The survey below was sent out yesterday by DACS

and is publicised on their website. It seeks the views of artists to

help DACS decide on their response to the UK government's independent

review of copyright.

DACS is currently participating in two important consultations which

affect visual artists: the UK government's independent review of

copyright and the European Commission's consultation on the

implementation and impact of the Artist's Resale Right.

To help inform our response to these consultations we are surveying

artists on these issues.

It is important that the voices of individual artists are heard!

We would really appreciate your help by completing this survey yourself,

and forwarding the link to other artists (and estates of artists) you know.

The survey can be found here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VZ9HLKL