Copyright concerns

[Peter Lambert]

I received this email from Anne:
Hi Peter,



I've just been downloading images from google to put into a flipchart but can you tell me if this breaks copyright rules?



Thanks

Anne


I know this may be a concern to many of you, so I am copying my reply here. I should add, this is not an official response from Promethean, but my own opinion.
Hi Anne,

Yes, its more than likely that the images are copyright. However, if you are using them for your own use in the classroom or distribution around your school, then I am sure no one would complain. If you were planning on posting them for free use by teachers, say via Promethean Planet it would be wise to try and contact the webmaster of the sites where you have obtained your images and say what you are doing. More often than not when image copyright holders get those emails they are pleased that they are being used in a non-profit and educational context.



My advice would be to use Wikimedia
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
rather than Google as an image source, many images there are either copyright free or licensed for redistribution with an acknowledgement to the copyright holder without having to ask permission.


Hope this helps.

[brianksee]

Great idea on posting this. I have had several FC's that I changed before I submitted because I was unsure of some of the images I had used. Wiki seems like a much better solution. Hopefully this will make more people feel comfortable about submitting FC's.

[APanz]

Another nice webside is www.flickr.com (http://www.flickr.com) There u can search about photos without any copyrights. It´s nice for company use too (then use the advanced search).

hope this helps :D

[markrobinson]

Creative commons aims to provide clarity on these issues:

www.creativecommons.org (http://www.creativecommons.org) is a useful starting point for searching for copyright free material.

http://search.creativecommons.org/

http://oercommons.org/ also contains a range of educational content