Standards & Guidelines » Intellectual Property

Artstor’s Images for Academic Publishing (IAP) program aims to offload the costs of museums delivering image files to scholars for academic publications by providing high-quality TIFF image files free to both Artstor subscribers and non-subscribers alike.
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Artsy (artsy.net) is a free website of 300,000+ images of world art and architecture, available for browsing by category or artist. Artsy shares nearly 40,000 downloadable images of artworks from museums, institutions, galleries, and archives that have made the images available for unrestricted use or use under certain conditions (Downloadable Images). Artsy allows its users to download and use Downloadable Images free of charge without restriction, for teaching, study, and other purposes, subject to any applicable laws and third-party rights or conditions.Each user is responsible for determining and complying with any applicable third-party rights and conditions. For more information on Downloadable Images and how you may use content on Artsy, see Artsy’s Terms of Use.

Non-commercial use of text and images in which Brooklyn Museum holds the copyright is permitted, with attribution, under the terms and conditions of a Creative Commons License.
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You may use and share images from our website for noncommercial purposes with attribution to the Brooklyn Museum in accordance with our copyright policy. The Brooklyn Museum charges licensing fees for commercial use of Brooklyn Museum images, which help fund ongoing efforts to care for our collections. The Museum is committed to keeping images affordable and to encouraging their use by matching image sizes to uses.

You may also order digital images for classroom use from Davis Art Images, where over two thousand images from the Brooklyn Museum collections are available online. Go to “Advanced Search” and enter “Brooklyn Museum” in the “Museum(s)” field.
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The copyright status of items in DPLA varies. DPLA links to a wide variety of different materials: many are in the public domain, while others are under rights restrictions but nonetheless publicly viewable. For individual rights information about an item, please check the “Rights” field in the metadata, or follow the link to the digital object on the content provider’s website for more information
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The eMuseum Network features over 1.6 million objects and images from 60 institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Rijksmuseum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Most records include links back to the collections database of the provider.  The Network is hosted by Gallery Systems, creators of The Museum System (TMS) collections management software.

In recognition of the fact that researchers today require remote access to unique resources, the Library has set the digitization of the entire Photoarchive as an essential strategic goal. The Library is digitizing its collection of 57,000 rare, original negatives of works of art through several grant-funded projects and making it freely available through the Frick Digital Image Archive. Nearly half of the digitized negatives are accessible through Artstor.
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The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose. No permission is required.

All of the images can be found on Getty Search Gateway, and the J. Paul Getty Museum images can also be accessed on the Museum's Collection webpages.

Open content images are identified with a "Download" link. Images provided are JPEG files at a minimum of 300 ppi. See the Guidelines for Successful Printing (PDF, 312KB) for more information on file format.           
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HathiTrust is a collaborative library initiative. Users are encouraged to cite and link to digital content and are free to do so without asking for permission. Depending on the source of the digitized work, licenses or other contractual terms may restrict further distribution or other uses. Please consult the “Access and Use” statement included in the PageTurner view for each item (in the sidebar to the left of the viewing area, next to the “Copyright” heading), for volume-specific information. You need to make your own assessment of the copyright or other legal concerns related to uses beyond those provided by HathiTrust for particular works.

The possible Access and Use statements that apply to each book are listed below. More information about copyright determinations in HathiTrust can be found on the Copyright page.

HathiTrust does not have authority to grant or deny permissions to use images from volumes that are in the public domain or open access.

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The Huntington is a private, independent institution dedicated to scholarship, conservation, and education in the arts and humanities. Permission to reproduce images or texts of materials owned by The Huntington is granted when the use of the materials in publications, in any format, conforms to The Huntington’s terms:

• The images or texts are used for scholarly, educational, artistic, cultural, or scientific purposes which support the Huntington's mission of the advancement of learning through research and the production of scholarly works; or for Huntington-approved commercial purposes.
• The integrity of the images or texts used commercially is maintained and their use meets standards of appropriateness established by the Huntington. Some examples of inappropriate use may be defined as context that might be misleading or defamatory, alteration of the original form, meaning, or intent of the creator of the materials, or use that would compete with or detract from an existing or planned Huntington use.
• The use of the materials in publication complies with any donor agreements attached to the materials. 
• The use of the materials in publication complies with copyright restrictions.
• The requester obtains and provides proper credit for the sources of images or texts used 
•  The requester pays appropriate fees for publication.

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Rights assessment is your responsibility. As a publicly supported institution the Library generally does not own rights to material in its collections. Therefore, it does not charge permission fees for use of such material and cannot give or deny permission to publish or otherwise distribute material in its collections. It is the patron’s obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in the Library’s collections.
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The Content on the Site marked “Public Domain High Resolution Image Available” consists of images of works from LACMA’s permanent collections that are currently available in “high resolution” format and that LACMA believes are in the public domain. LACMA is providing high resolution images of these works free of charge and for use without restriction.
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Materials are included in MHL once we have determined, to the best of our knowledge, that the materials are in the public domain under U.S. copyright law, or that the library making the digital version has received permission from the holder(s) of the copyright in the specific materials.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art is committed to making a broad range of digital images of artworks in the public domain widely and freely available for scholarly and academic publication. To assist in navigating the vast image content on this website, the Museum has implemented Open Access for Scholarly Content (OASC). Through OASC, artworks in the Collections section of the website which the Museum believes to be in the public domain and free of other known restrictions have been identified by an icon, Open Access for Scholarly Content (OASC) Icon; images associated with these artworks can be downloaded for license- and cost-free scholarly and academic publication, according to the Terms and Conditions. To learn more about how to identify, access, and use the Museum's Open Access for Scholarly Content (OASC), see Frequently Asked Questions: Open Access for Scholarly Content (OASC).
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NGA Images is a repository of digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art. On this website you can search, browse, share, and download more than 35,000 publication quality images for any use.  Users do not need to contact the Gallery for authorization to use these images.
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Materials downloaded from the NYPL Websites may only be used for personal, educational, or research purposes.  They may not be used for commercial purposes. High resolution digital files of photos in the Library’s Digital Gallery are available for editorial and commercial use for a reproduction fee. 
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Images of many of the works in the collection may be downloaded directly from PMA Collections Online. These images are supplied at no charge and may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes.

For Clients Needing Publication Quality Images For Scholarly And Commercial Uses:

• Images from the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
  • Jpegs of works not available for download
    • May require additional rights
    • $25.00 per jpeg
  • Images for large format publications, tiffs unless otherwise stated
    
    • $175.00 per image
  • Images are delivered electronically
  • Not all works in the collection are available

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The Lafayette College Libraries provide digitized materials from their collections as part of their mission to support teaching and research. These guidelines apply to the reproduction of these digital materials by users generally, unless otherwise stated on specific web pages.

Educational Use
Users may freely reproduce (print or download) from digital collections, provided the intended purpose is for use in teaching, research, or private study, and provided that proper attribution to the Lafayette College Libraries as the source of the materials is made (see below).

Publication or Commercial Use
Users must contact us for permission to reproduce materials from digital collections for electronic or print publication, exhibition, broadcast, product licensing or other commercial use. High resolution reproduction and use fees may apply.

Copyright Considerations
Although much of the material in the Lafayette digital collections is in the public domain and not subject to copyright restrictions, other items may still be under copyright by Lafayette College or other parties, including authors, publishers, or vendors. The absence of copyright information for individual items does not indicate that the work is necessarily in the public domain. It is the sole responsibility of the researcher to identify and satisfy any claims of copyright before making use of reproductions beyond the conditions of “fair use,” as described by the United States Copyright Law.
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All Walters manuscript images and descriptions provided here are licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License and the GNU Free Documentation License. You are free to download and use the images and descriptions on this website under the licenses named above. You do not need to apply to the Walters prior to using the images.
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The preservation, transmission, and advancement of knowledge in the digital age are promoted by the creative use and reuse of digitized content for research, teaching, learning, and creative activities. The goal of digitization is to enhance access to the collections in Yale’s museums, archives, and libraries for students, faculty, and the world. To this end, Yale will make digital copies of unrestricted public domain collections available for use without limitations through the University’s electronic interfaces.
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Cross Collection Discovery (CCD) provides a way to search across Yale's collections of art, natural history, books, and maps, as well as photos, audio, and video documenting people, places, and events that form part of Yale's institutional identity and contribution to scholarship. The content searchable in CCD will grow as additional University departments make use of the service to share Yale's collections with the Yale community and the world. Not all content available through Discover Yale Digital Content is unrestricted. Please refer to the individual repository website and to the rights information in the record for each item.
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The Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts content is now available for download and reuse. Although still technically in copyright in the UK (and a number of other common law territories) the images are being made available under a Public Domain Mark which indicates that there are no copyright restrictions on reproduction, adaptation, republication, or sharing of the content available from the site.
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Non-exclusive licenses are offered to use the selected material free of charge for certain permitted uses.
Applications for images supplied may be granted for the following permitted uses:

• for non-commercial research or private study
• for one-off classroom use in a school, college oruniversity
• presentation or lecture without entrance fee,including PowerPoint
• for reproduction within a thesis documentsubmitted by a student at an educational establishment (an electronicversion of the research may be stored online as long as it is madeavailable online at no cost to the end user), or
• reproduction within (but not on the cover of) anacademic and scholarly (peer reviewed) book, journal article or booklet,provided that the publication is published by an organisation set as a charity, society, institution or trust existing exclusively for publicbenefit and that the publication has a print-run of no more than 4,000copies.
• E-book rights are not covered. For these, pleasecontact sales@bmimages.com.

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You may only use the Classical Art Research Centre's database for educational, academic or research purposes. No part of the database whether image, text or program may be reproduced for any purpose. Use of the database is logged and monitored regularly. The University of Oxford (Classical Art Research Centre) holds copyright on all data presented here, except where the copyright on images is held by other parties. Images have been protected by watermarking.  Breaches of copyright are punishable under international law.
The Classical Art Research Centre is not normally able to grant permission to reproduce images, except where otherwise stated. Such requests should normally be directed to the museum or collection owning the object.
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The Europeana.eu website is run by the Europeana Foundation and gives access to a wide range of digitized cultural heritage from across Europe and beyond. This material is provided to Europeana by a large number of contributing institutions and organizations. Europeana strives to make all resources on this website available for re-use. As part of this, all metadata (textual information on digitized cultural heritage) on the site are published without any restrictions on re-use. Most other material, such as the previews to digitized cultural heritage, is clearly labeled with rights statements that indicate if and under which conditions it can be re-used.
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The contents of this site, including all images and text, are for personal, educational, non-commercial use only. The contents of this site may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form without the written permission of the State Hermitage Museum.
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The following datasets may be used freely: Early Dutch Books Online (EDBO or DPO) (Dutch only) in cooperation with the university libraries of Amsterdam (UvA) and Leiden, Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts in cooperation with Museum Meermanno | Huis van het Boek, The Dutch Digital Parliamentary Papers (Dutch only) in cooperation with the House of Representatives, and  Watermarks in Incunabula printed in the Low Countries

The Koninklijke Bibliotheek and Museum Meermanno | Huis van het Boek have waived their copyright on the metadata for both sets, which, therefore, have a CC0 licence. There is a Public Domain Mark for the objects (illustrations) in the ByvanckB set, which means that there are no copyright restrictions on reproducing, publishing, processing or sharing these illustrations.

This service allows you to request reproductions of all the works of art in the different collections of the Museo del Prado. All reproductions are of the maximum quality and are regularly updated for editorial, academic, and commercial use.
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All texts and images in this catalogue are the property of the Andalusian Regional Ministry of Culture. This database is only to be used for study and research. For any other use please contact the relevant museum.
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Today we are extremely happy to let you know about our latest development; over 30,000 images downloadable, for free, in the highest resolution we have them. You can search for and download them at Collections Online.

Over 14,000 images are available under a Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC-ND. If you aren’t familiar with Creative Commons it can look a little complicated, but what it means is you can use those images if attribute the image (we help you do that at each download page). You can’t make money from using the image, and you can’t change the image. Might sound a little restrictive but there is plenty you can still do, like use it in your homework, on your blog, print it and hang it on your wall…

But even better are the 17,000 images that downloadable for any use, any use at all. These images have no known copyright restrictions. Again it would be good if you attributed the original maker of the work, and link to the page on Collections Online so others can find it, but that isn’t mandatory.
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The Dutch National Archives released in June 2011 over 250,000 photos of photographic press agency Anefo as Open Data under a CC-BY-SA license. The metadata is available as CC0 “No Rights Reserved.”
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The Nationaal Archief holds millions of historical photographs and negatives. We estimate the total number of photographs, negatives and slides to be around 14 million.

In addition to 125 kilometres of records, the Nationaal Archief also holds the biggest and most important collection of maps and drawings in the Netherlands. This collection comprises some 500,000 items spread over 100 archives and dating as far back as the late Middle Ages. 

Only a small section of the collection is available in digital form for consulting online.
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Public domain images in Rijksstudio may be downloaded for free from the relevant page. These jpeg images are 4500 x 4500 pixels on average. The Rijksmuseum also provides free high-res TIFF files with colour reference for professional use. Please fill in the form below to order TIFF files. Images that are not yet available can still be provided for a fee.
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All artworks are outside copyright, and you are therefore free to share the images – copy, distribute, and transmit them; remix the images – adapt and reuse them in new contexts; use the images for any purpose – for instance teaching, research, presentations, publications, film productions etc., also for commercial purposes on the single condition that you attribute National Gallery of Denmark as the source of the image. The artworks is used with the Creative Commons license CC BY 3.
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The following “non-commercial” uses are the only uses permitted by these Terms of Use For personal use:

• For educational use: this means the one-time use of content by a student at an educational establishment for use in course-related academic materials, for the purpose of securing a degree or other academic qualification.
• For print-based academic publications: this means the one-time use of content (for one edition only) for a printed publication by an academic publisher with a print-run of up to and including 4,8bb7c5 copies.
• For academic e-publications: this means the use of content (but using low resolution images only) fo academic e-books and e-journals. Permission is granted for up to 5 years from the first day of publication.
• For use by charities and other non-profit organizations: reproduction of content in print or electronic formats for circulation to members or ‘friends’, with a print-run of up to and including 4,8bb7c5 copies or for up to 5 years for online use.

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We are delighted to announce that over 100,000 high resolution images including manuscripts, paintings, etchings, early photography and advertisements are now freely available through Wellcome Images.

Drawn from our vast historical holdings, the images are being released under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence.

This means that they can be used for commercial or personal purposes, with an acknowledgement of the original source (Wellcome Library, London). All of the images from our historical collections can be used free of charge.

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The internationally recognized WorldImages database provides access to the California State University IMAGE Project. It has just been selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collection of Internet materials. It contains approximately 100,000 images, is global in coverage and includes all areas of visual imagery. You are free to use these images for non-profit educational purposes, but we ask that you give credit to the copyright holders who retain rights to the images. These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.
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