Copyright Images

On the 4^th week of the NB 23 challenge, we get to learn about copyright images. This is something that I’m fairly familiar with. I know that you cannot take somebody else’s picture without their permission or giving them credit for it. For me, it’s like citing a source. At university, whether it was during my undergrad in psychology or for my master’s in library science, I’ve had to cite sources, and let me tell you it’s not always easy. I’ve never actually had to cite a picture with APA or MLA before. Whenever I used a picture, the prof just told me to give her the URL.

So I can say that this is the first time that I’m actually confused about one of the 23 things. Does a free image mean you don’t have to cite it? For example, I was on MorgueFile and clicked on free images but I still see authors for those images. So do I still give credit to the author?

Another thing I’ve learned in the past year about copyright images is that the free ones are booooring! It wastes so much time searching online for copyright-free pictures when you KNOW that you can just find it so easily in Google Images. I did learn some neat tricks from some of my colleagues though. When you do an advanced search in Google Images, you can select the usage rights and select the appropriate one.

So that’s normally what I use when I need to make a brochure for the library and I want nice pictures than what is provided by Microsoft Office!  But like I said, the best pictures are the ones you can’t have... and that’s not only true of pictures! J

So here’s my adventure with Wikimedia Commons. When it opened, I noticed that the picture of the day was this, which is some sort of chemistry element or something.

Image by Alchemist-hp via Wikimedia Commons.

 

The first thought that popped into my head was of crystal meth (of course right). Now before you go ahead and judge me, I’m a huge fan of Breaking Bad. So I searched in the search bar for Meth and found these two lovely pictures!

Image by Radspunk via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Image by Psychonaught via Wikimedia Commons.

 

And the last one is even of blue meth. I also happened to find the Breaking Bad logo. And it goes without saying that Breaking Bad is the awesomest show ever and you should all watch it! I'll give a more thurough review in another blog post!

Image by AMC via Wikimedia Commons.

So I guess the images that are not under copyright or the ones that we are able to use or wtv are not ALL bad! Anyway, all in all I’m still not sure how it works. I think it’s just easier to make the images yourself! :)