Using images and music in your projects...
Adding images to your research project or presentation can greatly enhance the quality of your work. It can also help your reader better understand what you are trying to say. However, any time you use music or images you have found online, you MUST carefully follow copyright law. Use this page as a guide and a resource for confidently adding media to your projects.
I f I find it online, that means it's okay to use it, right?
Unfortunately, no. The internet does make it very easy to just copy and paste whatever you want into your projects, but copyright law is very important. It helps creators protect their intellectual property. Your ideas and work are valuable too! Some creators will give their work a Creative Commons license. Basically this means they HAVE given permission for you to use their work. Learn more about Creative Commons HERE or watch the video below. The owner of this video is Max Noble and he has given permission to freely share this video .
Okay, so I can just insert Creative Commons and other royalty free images into my work and I am good?
Almost. You still need to cite your source. You can use Noodle Tools to create your works cited page and keep track of where you got your images, videos or music.
This is dumb. It's not like I am going to get caught.
Actually, you could. Some companies are known for aggressively protecting their copyright (looking at you Taylor Swift and Disney!) and have even been known to go after small businesses and individuals on sites like Etsy. Also, plagiarism (using other people's ideas as though they are your own) is a very serious offense and is a violation of our academic integrity policies.
Okay. I get it. Where can I find images and other media that are safe to use with attribution (citing the source) ?
Check out this newsletter that was created by Dr. Joyce Valenza. Notice how she included her creative commons license right below the title. She has given permission for people to use this creative work and display it as long as they give her credit, they leave it as is and they do not sell it. If she had not included this, I would not have shared it on my website. She provides so much great information and gives links to sites where we can gather images for use in our projects.
