Finding & Using Images, Audio, and Video

Copyright law exists to provide creators with exclusive rights to their original works—both published and unpublished—for a limited duration. These protections apply to a wide range of creative outputs, including literary, musical, dramatic, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. Copyright law is also designed to promote science and the arts by facilitating the dissemination of knowledge.

Under U.S. law (Title 17 of the United States Code), copyright owners are granted the exclusive rights to:

• Reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords
• Prepare derivative works based upon the original
• Distribute copies to the public by sale, transfer, rental, lease, or lending
• Perform the work publicly (in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works)
• Display the work publicly (in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work)
• Perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission (in the case of sound recordings)

It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright. These rights, however, are not unlimited in scope. Sections 107 through 121 of the 1976 Copyright Act establish limitations on these rights.  One major limitation is the doctrine of “fair use.”

These rights are legally enforceable, and unauthorized use may constitute copyright infringement. However, the law includes specific limitations these rights. One major limitation is the fair use doctrine, which permits limited use of copyrighted material under specific conditions, particularly for purposes such as teaching, scholarship, research, and commentary.

Copyright is granted to creators automatically, meaning that unless you have a specific reason to believe otherwise, you should assume that the multimedia you find is under copyright and you do not have permission to use it.

However, copyright is not the only way to manage original works. Creators may choose to make their work available with fewer restrictions than copyright by applying a Creative Commons license or releasing it to the public domain. Limited use of copyrighted material is also permitted under the Fair Use doctrine.

Alternatives are sometimes called "copyleft." For more information on copyright, public domain, Creative Commons, and Fair Use, please see our Copyright Guide which is listed below:

Public Domain Dedication

This icon indicates that the creator of the work chose to waive ALL rights to their work. Others may copy, modify, distribute, and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission or providing attribution. It is also symbolized with CC0 (Creative Commons, Zero rights reserved.)

Public Domain Mark

This icon identifies works that are free of known restrictions under copyright law. For example, works may be in the public domain because their copyright has expired (see Duration tab), or because they were created by the federal government. Others may copy, modify, distribute, and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

Royalty-free, or RF, refers to copyrighted media or intellectual property that does not require ongoing royalty or licensing fee payments; instead, you may pay a one-time fee in order to use the media multiple times. There may be a limit as to the number of times you can reuse the media. RF licenses are not exclusive, so others may purchase and use the same media as you. Some media might be labeled "royalty free" even though its one-time fee is $0.

Guide content based on the Finding and Using Media guide from the J. Edgar & Louise S. Monroe Library, Loyola University & the Copyright & Creative Commons, Free Images and Music guide from the Brisbane Grammar School Libraries.