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Free, shareable, modifiable?

Using open images in your work

December 5, 2018

Kate Gibbings ◦ Engineering Librarian ◦ kate.gibbings@uoit.ca

Jenn Tesluk ◦ Library Communications & Assessment Officer ◦ jenn.tesluk@uoit.ca

Slides shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

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In this workshop

  • How do you use images at work?
  • 3 copyright takeaways
  • Find open images licensed to meet your needs
  • Give proper credit when required
  • Share your work

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How do you use images in your work?

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How do you use images at work?

  • Presentations
  • Teaching / Course materials (in and out of Blackboard)
  • Advertising (posters, flyers, etc.)
  • Social media
  • Reports

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Library’s list of good image websites:

guides.library.uoit.ca/open-images-media

  • Unsplash, Pixabay, Pexels
  • Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons
  • Creative Commons Search, Flickr
  • Noun Project
  • Google Image Search (use filter!)

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3 copyright takeaways

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1.

Internet content is copyrighted.

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2.

There are exceptions in the Copyright Act for educational institutions.

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In an educational institution, you can:

  • Reproduce and communicate content from the internet for an audience consisting primarily of UOIT students, faculty or staff.

As long as the work (a) is not protected by a digital lock, (b) is posted legally by the copyright owner, (c) does not include a clearly visible notice prohibiting the use, (d) and is cited.

(UOIT Copyright Guide. Internet content.)

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In an educational institution, you can:

Reproduce a “short excerpt” of a copyrighted work for students in a class in a handout, password-protected LMS course or coursepack.

  • Cite the work.
  • Make sure the use is “fair”

(UOIT Copyright Guide. Application of the fair dealing exception.)

A short excerpt could be 10% of a work or, in the case of images:

  • One artistic work such as an image, painting, photograph, diagram, map, chart, etc. from a work containing other artistic works.

(UOIT Copyright Guide. Fair dealing exception guidelines.)

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3.

“Fair dealing” is an important exception in the Copyright Act.

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In Canada, fair dealing means...

You can use a copyrighted work without asking permission, under certain conditions.

Condition 1: The use must be for research, private study, criticism, review, news reporting, education, satire or parody.

(UOIT Copyright Guide. Application of the fair dealing exception.)

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In Canada, fair dealing means...

Condition 2: The use must be “fair,” taking into consideration:

  • goal (or purpose) of the dealing
  • character of the dealing
  • amount of the dealing
  • nature of the work
  • available alternatives to the dealing
  • effect of the dealing on the work

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Find the right open images

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Creative Commons licenses

Creative Commons licenses have made it easy for millions of creators to share their work and control how it can be used.

1.4 billion pieces of content shared worldwide

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Creative Commons licenses

Creative Commons licenses are the backbone of many popular image-sharing websites, and a key part of many open content websites. For example:

More publishers and content owners are adopting CC licenses, including academic journal publishers like PLOS One.

All images

shared under CC licenses

Millions of images

shared under CC licenses

Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay

Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons

Flickr

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CC License Building Blocks

Attribution: Give credit to the creator/copyright holder of the work.

ShareAlike: New creations using this work must be shared under the same license.

NoDerivs: The work can only be used as a whole, unchanged.

NonCommercial: The work cannot be used for commercial purposes.

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Some combinations

Most common

license:

CC BY-SA

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Public domain

CC0

“Use this universal tool if you are a holder of copyright or database rights and you wish to waive all your interests, if any, in your work worldwide. This may be the case if you are reproducing an underlying work that is in the public domain and want to communicate that you claim no copyright in your digital copy where copyright law may grant protection.”

(Creative Commons. Public domain.)

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CC License Chooser

Try the CC License Chooser tool:

https://creativecommons.org/choose/

Scenario:

You have created PowerPoint slides that include open images, and have posted the slides online.

What license would you assign to to these slides?

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Find an image

  • You are advertising a pancake breakfast event.
  • You are commemorating Buffy Sainte-Marie’s birthday on February 20.
  • You need icons to represent the subjects of math and science.
  • You need an image to represent the electrical power grid.
  • Or, find an image that is relevant to your work.

Copy the image and link into this Google Doc.

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Find an image

Stock Photography & Backgrounds

Unsplash

Pexels

Pixabay

Canva

Stock Photography & Miscellaneous

CC Search

(Flickr & others)

CC Search Beta

Specific Objects, Places, People, Animals, etc.

Wikipedia

Wikimedia Commons

Icons

Noun Project

(Create free account)

Flaticon

Academic Illustrations, Charts, Diagrams

Open eBooks

Open Access Journals

(Check image licenses)

Everything

Google Images

(Tools > Usage Rights)

* UOIT Communications and Marketing has a Shutterstock account (stock photography)

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Which image sources worked best for you?

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Give credit when required

eMOTION by Martin Fisch. CC BY 2.0.

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Attribution for Creative Commons

No specific citation style required.

Include:

  • Title (if there is one)
  • Author
  • Source (link)
  • License (with link)

Example:

eMOTION by Martin Fisch. CC BY 2.0.

Location:

“Reasonable” location based on the medium. You can group image credits together, for example in a final slide or at the end of a video.

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Attribution from non-Creative Commons

Do they request a specific attribution format? If so, use it.

Noun Project Example:

Created by becris from Noun Project.

Medium-specific credit requirements:

The Noun Project allows you to group image credits together if you wish. For example, in the “About” section of a website, a single Powerpoint slide, or a credit section of a video as well as in the video description.

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Attribution from non-Creative Commons

No specific attribution style required?

The best practice is to use Title (if there is one), Author, and Source (usually a link).

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Public domain

No attribution required!

If you would like to give credit to the creator, the best practice is to use Title (if there is one), Author and Source.

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An open access journal example

Remember that even if a journal is open access, an image or figure within an article may not be licensed for reuse.

Here is an example from PLOS One. All articles are published under a CC BY 4.0 license.

Image source: Chabot, D., Craik, S.R., and Bird, D.M. (2015). Population census of a large common tern colony with a small unmanned aircraft. PLoS ONE 10(4), e0122588. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0122588

Available from https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0122588

Shared under a CC BY 4.0 license.

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An open textbook example

Open textbooks, shared under CC licenses, often rely on open images.

An open textbook source:

Image source: Theis, T., & Tomkins, J, Eds. Sustainability: A comprehensive foundation. OpenStax.

Available from https://cnx.org/contents/F0Hv_Zza@43.5:HdWd2hN5@2

Shared under a CC BY 3.0 license.

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Wrap Up

Finish Line by Janeandd. CC BY 2.0.

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Questions?

Send copyright questions to: copyright@uoit.ca

Fiona Munroe, Social Science and Education Librarian (Interim)

Janet Martin, Social Science and Education Library Technician

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Difficult questions - Memes

Memes often include copyrighted content.

Canadian IP lawyer Elias Borges argues that use of meme could be considered parody or satire, and therefore fall under fair dealing. However, fairness is determined by a number of factors. For example, the meme should not disparage the original work.

The EU Copyright Directive passed in Sept. 2018. One provision requires large tech platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter) to filter out and take down content that violates copyright law. This could include memes.

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Difficult questions - Screenshots

Using the educational exception (content with limited distribution to UOIT students, faculty or staff), screenshots are likely considered a “short excerpt” and therefore OK to use.

When the screenshot is being used outside the classroom or learning management system, check the website/company’s terms of use. Google and Microsoft, for example, have policies about screenshots.