Can I use that? A Quick Guide to Images and Sound in Your Media Project
When creating a digital assignment for class, our instinct is to do a Google search for the perfect images or music. We have an idea of how we want our project to look and Google helps us with that. However, this isn’t necessarily the right way to do things. Just as we know that copying another person’s paper is plagiarism, so is taking images or music without care of who those belong to. At the Digital Scholarship Lab, we are working on an e-booklet that goes into some depth on copyright, fair use, and best practices on using images and music, but we want to give you a preview since many of you may have presentations and other digital projects coming up.
Images
Google can still be your friend for images. You just need to know how to search for images that are free to use. For example, if I’m given the best assignment ever on doing a presentation on puppies and I want to use as many pictures as possible, I first go to images.google.com and type in “puppies.” Then, I’ll click on Settings and Advanced Search.
From there, I can scroll down to “usage rights” and I can choose either “free to use or share” or “free to use share or modify.”
You can see that my results look different when I choose “free to use share or modify.”
These are images I can use in my presentation. Remember, though, that just because I am free to share these images does not mean I shouldn’t still cite the source. That is very important. When you click on some of the images, you may notice that many of the images are from Flickr, which can be another great source for images and we will cover more of that in our booklet.
Sound
Sound is a bit trickier to navigate. There isn’t an easy Google search trick to find music. This can be particularly frustrating when you want a specific song to be playing in the background of your video. For example, I may want to use Pharell Williams’ “Happy” for my puppy slideshow or video. I know I can’t, because that song is copyrighted. So there are two places I can search for the music I want: SoundzAboundz (available through Raynor Memorial Library’s database site) or ccMixter (where artists share their music). With ccMixter, you have the option to search for music that is free to use commercially, free to use non-commercially e.g. your class assignment, or free to use without restrictions but for a small fee.
You won’t find popular songs on either of these websites, but you can find some instrumental music that will capture the mood you want to present.
So why should you care about this? Well, first of all, as mentioned earlier, using images or sounds that are not copyright free is similar to plagiarizing, especially when making your project public at a conference or sharing it on a website*. Secondly, the library has a great repository where we collect students’ projects (with their permission) to share them not just on our blog, or maybe you want to throw it up on YouTube or another publishing platform later. While you may still want to use “Happy” for your video, know that you might run into problems sharing that work outside of the classroom, and why limit the audience of your project?
Keep a lookout for our e-booklet that will go into more detail about this issue and if you ever have any questions or concerns, set up a consultation with a DSL lab team member!
*But hey what about fair use? Librarians know a lot about fair use and you can learn more here. Or here. Or here. Or come to the Digital Scholarship Lab to chat with librarians in person. They love this stuff!
