{"id":717,"date":"2025-10-15T03:40:02","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T03:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/charlotte\/?p=717"},"modified":"2025-10-15T03:42:33","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T03:42:33","slug":"fair-use-and-media-attribution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/charlotte\/2025\/10\/15\/fair-use-and-media-attribution\/","title":{"rendered":"Fair Use and Media Attribution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You can\u2013and hopefully will!\u2013use your own images, music, and video on Open Lab course, hub, and portfolio sites. However, if you do decide to use media other than your own, whether a photo or music, you should make sure it\u2019s media that the owner\/creator has licensed other people to use for free, and that you remember to give proper credit (attribution) when you use that media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attributing images<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that provides free, standardized copyright licenses; these licenses allow people to take creative work they own the copyright to and make it available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, CC licenses let people change their copyright from the default \u201call rights reserved\u201d to \u201csome rights reserved.\u201d Creative Commons licenses are not an alternative to copyright, but rather modify a creator\u2019s copyright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can use Creative Commons-licensed materials as long as you follow the license conditions, one of which is attribution<\/strong>. Usually, a photo credit is printed below the image as a small caption. You will need to include as much of this information as you can:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Attribution:\u00a0<\/strong>Give author + what site you got it from + CC license; link to source<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Example:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cBrooklyn Street Scenes\u201d<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0Steven Pisano<\/a>\u00a0(CC BY 2.0)<\/a>\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Notice that the attribution goes beyond just giving a link! But, if you use the Creative Commons<\/a> search engine below, the site will automatically generate an attribution like this for you! For example, Creative Commons generated this attribution for the featured image for this post: \u201cHarlem art<\/a>\u201d by TheTurducken<\/a> is licensed under CC BY 2.0<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Creative Commons image collections<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

    Here are some places you can find images that you can use, usually with attribution, for your sites. You can also use your own images, of course, and you may want to give yourself attribution (\u201cSummer outside my apartment building,\u201d photo by Mabel Mora).<\/p>\n\n\n\n