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Citing Your Sources: Images, Music, and Creative Commons

Provide information and how to regarding citation/referencing.

Using Images

When you take an image from online and use it in your school work you may be stealing. 

It's important that you find and use images from sources that give you permission to use another's work in your project. Using someone else's work is fine as long as you have permission and properly attribute (cite/give credit) to the source of the image. 

When someone takes a photo, logo, image, writes a song, or creates music, or piece of artwork it is automatically copyrighted meaning the author has exclusive ownership rights for their creation. The owner can grant permission for others to use/modify their work with permission. This means if the work is subject to copyright you must have permission to use. The exception to this rule is under the fair use doctrine. (see below)

The way to do this is by using finding creative common images and providing the proper attribution to the source as the creators have already provided permission to use their works.  

Watch the video below to learn more about Creative Commons. 

What is creative commons                                   

How to cite a creative commons image

Royalty Free Images using Google Images

Reverse Image Search using Google Lens

Creative Commons and Royalty Free Images

Royalty Free Music

News Photography Collections 

Creative Commons and Royalty Free Images

Sources for Royalty Free Music

News Photography Collections

What is Creative Commons

How to Cite a Creative Commons Image

Attributing Sources 

Include the following information when attributing an creative commons image. 
  • Title/Description - if there is a title then just a short description of the image.
  • Author/Creator - link to their profile page (if they have one), if not then just include the author's name.
  • Source - name of website and linked to the source page.
  • License - include the type of license and linked to the source page.

Apartment complex looking west in Zhuhai, China, Alan Barbee, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-ND 4.0
Best Practices for Creative Commons Attribution 

Finding Royalty Free Images with Google

Reverse Image Search

You found an image you would like to use but don't know where it came from. 

A Google Reverse Image Search using Google Lens will help locate the photo's info. 

Once you locate a photo do the following:

1. Right mouse click on the image.

2. Select "search for image using Google Lens".

3. In the search box, enlarge the search area to include the entire photo (otherwise it may look for something else in the photo such as the clothing the person is wearing).

4. Click "find image source" at the top of the Google Lens pop-up box. 

5. Review the source material. You may be provided with a number of other photos. Select the photo you are interested in then "click" on it to see the original source of the photo. 

You can also do a reverse image search with Tineye

Attribution

Adapted from the work of  Kelly Donaldson's AISG Libguides