Carbuncle's Blog

OK, so you are looking around for Public Domain photographs for your new website or just launched blog and all the photographs you find are licensed as open source, public domain, free, gnu licensed, but they all have restrictions that you just know will mean you will have to remove the photographs if your site ever becomes successful?

Familiar scenario?

Well, here is a tip:

GO DIRECT TO THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S WEBSITE AND GET THE PHOTOS THERE.

Online directories of free photographs are invariably UNABLE to place photographs irrevocably in the public domain – the only person who can do this is the photographer him or herself. After all, the copyright unless assigned resides with the photographer. AND, how can you even know that the photographer uploaded the photograph to that public directory?

Here is a list of online free photographs where the photographers themselves are placing the photographs in the public domain FOR ANY USE, private, personal or commercial.

PD Photo – Free Photos And Pictures (public domain, stock pictures) – the photographer here explicitly places his photographs in the public domain and explains that he allows his photographs to be used for any use. (You still have to be careful – he explains that he is unable to assign rights where people are recognisable in the photographs for instance – read his useful guides and advice before use)

FreePhotos.Se – This photographer has placed his personal collection of animal, buildings, flowers, nature, vehicles and winter photographs in the public domain for any use. He states at the website: “All photos on this site are really free for any use! All photos have been dedicated to the public domain. This means you can use them pretty much anywhere and anyhow you like. Even commercial use is allowed.”

A Cornish Sourcebook – Public Domain Photographs – Cornish nature and archaeological photographs. The author states: “The photos are free to download, distribute and publish, either electronically or in print, and I have waived copyright on these particular photos…”

The one caveat I will point out is that sometimes people (including, strangely enough, photographers) change their minds, so although photographs cannot be recalled from the public domain once placed there, new photographs may have different licence terms – it is in your own interest to always check license terms for yourself – and then make up your own mind about their appropriate use.

Also, nothing in this post at Carbuncle’s Blog should be construed as legal advice – I am just sharing my own, somewhat bilious (I know, I know) view on the so called “free” world on the World Wide Web. It can be a minefield for webmasters – take your own legal advice when neccessary if you are making a big investment in time or money into your site or blog.

Here are a couple of other resources of mine which might be helpful:

www.enub.com – directory of free graphics resources. There are a couple of pages for public domain images and public domain photographs that I have gathered together over a period of years.

www.utmem.com – A collection of links to legal discussions of copyright issues for webmasters. I created this as a resource for myself in support of my publishing to the World Wide Web. Lots of guides and legal definitions and interpretation of public domain and copyright and intellectual property issues for webmasters.

If anyone knows of other photographers that are placing their work in the public domain for any use including commercial, I will edit this post and add the information here.

Oh, and another good kicking off point in your search could be Wikipedia:Public domain image resources. This page is a big list of public domain(ish) image resources and could be a good place to start.