Flickr and Creative Commons

Source

Now that we are blogging in class, you will need to look up a lot of pictures to insert. Maybe you will include them in your post because they show what you are talking about, maybe because I tell you that you have to, or maybe just to make your post look better! Whatever the reason, you need to be familiar with Flickr and Creative Commons!

Flickr is a site that lets people share pictures. It is a great place to look for images and pictures that you need for your blog posts. It is also a great place to look for Creative Commons pictures. Creative Commons pictures are those which people say are OK to use on your blogs, and in other published work (though you do need to give the person who took them credit by citing them).

Did you think that it was OK to take any picture from the internet and use it for your work? Well, you can't, even if you give the person credit. Some pictures are only to be looked at, and not to be used by other people. These pictures have the label All Rights Reserved (look for this whenever you find a picture that you want to use). So, just to be clear:

                                                All Rights Reserved = You Can't Use It!!!

OK, so now you may be asking, "But HOW do I find pictures that I CAN use?". The answer is Creative Commons. When you go onto Flickr and do a search for an image, make sure that you click Advanced Search. Then, when the advanced search options come up, scroll down to the bottom and click on Creative Commons images. The next set of pictures will be Creative Commons pictures, and these are OK to use. To double-check, look for the label that says Some Rights Reserved.

If you are one of those people who like to use Google images, then you will still need to do the Advanced Search, but on the options page, scroll down to the bottom and click on "Labeled For Reuse" in the License section.

Don't forget, though- you still need to cite your picture source. To cite your source means to tell where your picture came from. To do this, you will need to copy the URL address of the page where your picture is located. There are two ways that you can cite the picture:

1.) Simply paste the URL address at the bottom of your blog post (do this for EVERY picture used).
     or:
2.) When you are writing your post and have put in the picture, go underneath the picture, write the word "Source", and highlight it. Then, click on Link and paste the URL address in the space. When you are done, the word "Source" should be in a different color, and when you click on it, it should take you to the page where the picture is located. This is called a Hyperlink.

So, just to summarize all of this information: when you are creating work that other people will see and you need to include pictures, make sure that you are using pictures that you are allowed to use. Then, remember to cite the source of these pictures.

Of course, if you still have any questions, please ask me!