Studio Art Resources: Copyright for Artists

There are many artists that appropriate other images as elements of their work.  You may also want to use an image to prove a point in a paper or put it on your website.  However, it's important to be careful and be aware of the laws governing image rights.  Here are some resources that may help you figure out whether you can use an image or not:

Copyright Basics for Artists This is the Artists' Rights Society's basic explanation of some elements of copyright--what it is, how long it lasts, etc

Crash Course in Copyright Online tutorial from the Univ. of Texas.

Explanation of Fair Use What is fair use? It's a confusing concept, but it means that there are exceptions to the rule that you must always have permission from the creator before you can use their work. If you are using it for purposes such as criticism, commentary, or scholarship, it may be okay--but there are exceptions, so reading this is a good idea.

VRA Intellectual Properties Resources Links to resources providing guidance on Academic Use of Images

Digital Millennium Copyright Act Fair use in a digital environment can be even more confusing. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act deals with this and other online copyright-related issues.

Requesting Images from Museums (Metropolitan Museum of Art Example) Maybe you want to use an image from a specific museum. If so, it's a good idea to check out their website and find out what rules they have about using their images. You may have to pay a fee. Check out the Met's policy by clicking the link.

You may have seen, on Flickr or elsewhere, captions that say that an image is protected by the Creative Commons license.  Creative Commons is a type of copyright or licensing agreement between the creator of an image and everybody else on the Internet.  If you look closely, the Creative Commons license that goes with an image will tell you exactly what you can and can't do with an image.  There are four basic qualifications:

Attribution: If the image says this or has a little person icon next to it, that means you can use the image if and only if you give credit to the original creator.

Noncommercial: If the image says this or has a little dollar-sign-with-a-slash icon, you can use the image but you may not sell it or use it in any commercial way.

No Derivative Works: If the image says this or has a little equals sign icon, you can use the image but you may not alter, modify, or change it in any way.

Share Alike: If the image says this or has a little circular arrow icon, you can distribute derivative works of the image but only under the terms of the original licensing agreement.  E.g. if the original image was Attribution + Noncommercial (by-nc), you must distribute your version as Attribution + Noncommercial.

These four factors can be combined in various ways.  You can look at the official website of the Creative Commons to find out (much) more about this. 

Artists Rights Society The preeminent copyright, licensing, and monitoring organization for visual artists in the United States. Founded in 1987, ARS represents the intellectual property rights interests of over 50,000 visual artists and estates of visual artists from around the world (painters, sculptors, photographers, architects and others).