As you already know, Fair Use covers a lot of types of material reproduction, especially for schools and news sources. But what if you need images for commercial purposes? Fortunately for you, more than 1 BILLION images have been published under Creative Commons licenses since 2002.
What Is Creative Commons?
Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit founded in America in 2001 that has devoted itself to providing “free, easy-to-use copyright licenses to make a simple and standardized way to give the public permission to share and use creative work–on conditions of [the author’s] choice.”
How did they do this?
After first being founded, the company released several licenses, called ‘Creative Commons licenses’ to the public, free of charge. One of the unique aspects of these licenses is that they allow authors to decide which rights they’d like to receive and which they’d like to waive for public use or benefit.
The mission and vision behind Creative Commons is to propel the realization of the Internet’s full potential in a way that uses universal access to research and education and cultural participation to “drive a new era of development, growth, and productivity.”
Below are some of the most well-known platforms through which you can access work that has been published under Creative Commons licensing.
Creative Commons platforms
- Flickr
- Bandcamp
- Wikipedia
- YouTube
- 500PX
- Internet Archive
- Vimeo
- Wikipedia Commons
- FMA
- Skills Commons
- Boundless
- Europeana
- Tribe of Noise
- Jamendo
- MIT Open Courseware
- PLOS
Although Creative Commons has helped drive exponential growth in creativity and access through their licensing, there are still requirements of attribution and other restrictions that can be applied to images and other works—it all depends on the kind of Creative Commons Licensing that the author has chosen.
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