Students may use images in their research papers under "fair use". If your research is kept internal to the BAC community through sending the final product to your professor, or if your work is posted through an ip-authenticated course management systems (such as Moodle), or your thesis is maintained within the BAC, you are following fair use. Fair use allows limited use of copyrighted material without asking permission for purposes such as research, scholarship, and teaching.
Fair use is an exemption to copyright. Copyright is legal protection for people who have created the original works that you may want to use for research.
Below is a small screen capture from a much larger graphic that lays out much of what has to be considered when you are in a position to use an image with regards to copyright and fair use.
This screen capture above is from a graphic designed by Curtis Newbold from TheVisualCommunicationGuy.com. Permission was granted on June 7,2021 to use screen captures from the original graphic.
Here is the whole graphic that outlines decisions you may want to consider regarding how to use and distribute images.
A creative commons license included with an image or book online gives you the ability to know, in advance, what someone will allow you to do with their images or publication.
You might see the symbols used for a creative commons license under an image or included in information about the image or book. Here is an example:
There are 6 types of creative common licenses. If you'd ike to know more about Creative Commons licenses, visit the organization's web site.
Examples of images using creative commons licenses can be found on flickr.com. The web site has a page that assists photographers with learning more about which license might best suite their needs when they post images. The Internet Archive also has a great deal of material that has been posted with creative commons licenses. Here is an example from the BAC's online internet archives collection.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, an image featuring then-presidential candidate Barack Obama's photo became the subject of a legal dispute (copyright vs. fair use). An Associated Press photographer, Mannie Garcia, photographed Obama. The artist Shepard Fairey took a portion of the photograph, enlarged it and designed the text "Hope" as a graphic across it. You can see both images in this National Public Radio article.
The issue in Fairey vs. Associated Press was whether Fairey's use constituted "fair use". The Associated Press argued that Shepard Fairey had acted in bad faith, that the project was commerical, and that his use of the photo was not transformative. The dispute was settled privately. There were good points made on both sides. If you're interested in reading the case, here is an article about it - Reflections on the Hope Poster case.
The citation for the article, Reflections on the Hope Poster case, is the following:
Fisher, William W., III, Frank Cost, Shepard Fairey, Meir Feder, Edwin Fountain, Geoffrey Stewart, and Marita Sturken. "Reflections on the Hope Poster case." Harvard Journal of Law & Technology 25, no. 2 (2012): 243+.
Other examples of fair use:
University of Illinois: video
University of Illinois: images
College Art Association: images
