Japonica Image Policy

Articles published on Japonica must meet this image policy.

Like all publications on Medium, Japonica must adhere to U.S. copyright law and Medium’s policies.

Most social media like Twitter and Facebook generally ignore copyright infringement unless the copyright holder complains. Even then, they are insulated from lawsuits as a platform, and it’s rarely worthwhile for image owners to sue individuals, especially when the offenders are frequently anonymous or outside the U.S.

Medium publications are different. Medium itself is protected. The owners of publications are not since we are responsible for curation. Since we make money as individual writers on Medium, it easy to attach our earnings after a lawsuit.

For that reason, Medium publications have to operate more like traditional print publications. However, unlike print publications, we have no budget to pay for images, no photographers on staff, and no lawyers to argue in court for fair use.

And unlike obscure print publications, it’s trivially easy to search online for anyone using your images without paying, so there’s a thriving industry of copyright infringement lawsuits.

Fortunately, there is plenty of free imagery available that presents no copyright issues. So that’s all we allow.

The publication ILLUMINATION, one of the largest publications on Medium, and its founder Dr Mehmet Yildiz have put together a detailed image policy along with a great explanation. I encourage everyone to read it.

Why Image Copyrights Matter for Writers and Editors

Since ILLUMINATION has spent years dealing with the image issue and has actual attorneys helping to craft their sensible policy, we’re going to borrow it.

Here is the Japonica policy, with thanks to ILLUMINATION:

Japonica Image Policy

1. All images must be copyright free.
2. So that we know that the images are copyright free without having to spend time on research, all images must be cited with a link to the source.
3. No explicit, harmful, racist, or otherwise derogatory images will be allowed.
4. All images must comply with U.S. AND Japanese copyright law and Medium’s rules and guidelines.
5. Decisions will be made by Japonica’s editors at our sole discretion. We are not lawyers, and not even getting paid to work on Japonica so we will err on the side of caution. Time spent arguing is time not spent bringing you great content or writing our own articles, so if you don’t like the answer, too bad.

Copyright-Free Images Accepted

1. Copyright-free stock images from Unsplash, Pixabay, Freepix, Freeimages, etc. Many of these include a mixture of free and paid images, so make sure to use only the free ones.
2. Copyright-free images from Wikimedia Commons. Note that not all images on Wikimedia Commons are free for all use and some have specific attribution requirements. Many are included under fair use exemption which does not apply to us. So please check the fine print for each image.
3. Photographs taken by author and images created by author.
4. Images used with explicit permission of the copyright holder.
5. Images from subscription services if evidence is provided of a paid subscription for commercial usage.

We cannot accept any article that includes copyrighted images without permission. That includes photos and images from other websites, or anything uploaded to social media. Embedded links to other pages or posts are fine.

Unfortunately, we cannot take advantage of “fair use” exemptions for all the reasons ILLUMINATION explained in this separate article on the topic:

Using Copyrighted Images Under the Fair Use Doctrine

To summarize the article in 1 sentence: the only way to know if a usage of an image is allowed under the “fair use exemption” is to argue it in court.

We don’t have the lawyers, time, or money to go to court on behalf of your image, so please find a suitable royalty-free image to use.