We will now further qualify the "free" usage of our selected image by finding out if it is licensed through "Creative Commons" or "GNU Free Documentation", or published as belonging to "Public Domain". This final step will absolutely ensure whether or not our selected image is usable for our intents and purposes.
First, let's look at how Creative Commons filtering and qualifying works.
The following is the definition of Creative Commons, as published by the University of Melbourne Copyright Office, and sanctioned by Google itself for the purposes of selecting images for reuse using Google searches-
“Creative Commons images have been licensed so that they can be used for a variety of purposes.Using Creative Commons material is a greater alternative when it is not possible or practical to get permission from the copyright owner. Some conditions do apply, (bold and italics applied by me) but Creative Commons images can be used on University blogs, wikis and websites, a part of public events and lectures, in University publications and Cousera subjects.”So, next, viewing your selected image, look to the right of the picture, and click on "Visit Page". This will take you to the original page that the image was first published on.
Doing my research, I chose an image of a cow.
When I clicked on "Visit Page", the first thing I did (and you should do) is check to see if the image I had chosen on Google was exactly the same, not altered in any way, as it appeared on the original page - verifying its authenticity.
If the image you have selected on Google has been altered from the original, shy away from using it! You have no idea what a thread of possible usage rights violations you would be getting attached to!
So I then scrolled down, and ...... found this on the original page it was published, re: licensing:
I hope you can read the words on the image, but it says this image is free to share and to remix, but "under the following conditions":
Attribution: You must attribute in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Fortunately, the author of the picture was listed, so it was a simple matter to edit my image and give attribution to him in the caption, and show it on my site like this:
On the next page we will get into legitimately using "GNU Free Documentation" and Public Domain images.
Reply
"So, as long as you use the image exactly as it is, without modifying it in any way, you are free to do so."
Does that include the name of the picture and it's extension? If so, what if I need to change it to a .png or .jpg or .gif or .bmp?
You advise the learner to do a Google Search, if this is indeed where you want the search to start, they will not be able to follow the rest of the tutorial as you are assuming that they know the difference between a Google Search Bar and a Google IMAGE Search Bar.
The latter is the one you are referring to and is the image/screenshot you are alluding to.
So, either you need to change the wording to Google Image Search, or you need to put an extra step in the tutorial to advise them to do a Google Images Search, this will then give them the a list of websites, and then they click on Google Images which will THEN render the Google Image Search bar.
Hope this makes sense.
