I'd love to introduce you to some of my favorite sources for inspirational imagery.
This is a wonderful blog that will post illustrations from very old, very wonderful books - among other things. Clicking on an image in the blog will often (but not always) take you straight to a flickr page with all sorts of different sizes of the illustrations that are often (but not always) available for download under a creative commons license. If they do have a CCL - read it carefully and see under what conditions you may use it in your art! Often you simply need to cite your source.
One of my favorite recent posts, The Whaling Naturalist
Not every image on the blog is copyright free or listed under a creative commons license. "It's the responsibility of every individual user of an image to research and determine the rights status for each and every image. Seeing it on Bibliodyssey in no way, shape or form discharges that legal responsibility." So make sure that you check the source for each image. This generous blogger is very conscientious about listing and linking sources, making it very easy for you to check. And - remember that international copyright laws can be different from US copyright laws.
Geometric Perspective, what's up with the rooster? I LOVE it!
Bibliodyssey has an extensive resource list in the side bar - different digital libraries from universities and such all over the world. It is well worth your perusal.
You might also like this previous post on the Library of Congress' Flickr site
You are in error describing the content of the blog as "copyright free". That is not a criterion by which material is chosen or posted.
ReplyDeleteAlso: US law is not world law. Just sayin'.
It's the responsibility of ever individual user of an image to research and determine the rights status for each and every image. Seeing it on my blog in no way, shape or form discharges that legal responsibility.
Thanks, though, for the implied kind words.
peachy - Thank you so much for your note.
ReplyDeleteI sincerely apologize for any misconceptions on my part and would love to be part of educating my readers (along with myself.)
Could you please give me a better description or edits that would better reflect your content and I will happily change the post.
I love your blog and would love to send my readers there - but certainly not under false assumptions.
All my best wishes to you - and thank you for such a beautiful blog!
Thank you for the valuable resource. Happy Easter.
ReplyDeleteUmm.. it's *peacay* ;- )
ReplyDeleteNo idea why, but it is misspelled or even misspelt really really often. I get pecay or pekay or peakay but this is the first peachy I've seen!
As to your request... I operate in a, what you might call, sensitive environment and I rely, for good or ill, upon the good graces of a large number of people in places like libraries and universities and galleries etc to, at the very least, tolerate the way I operate. Most are, in fact, very encouraging of my efforts and I published a book based on the blog a few years ago which imposed on me the necessity of actively cultivating some of these relationships, despite my being essentially an outsider of the realms in which I 'play'.
This is the long way of saying that for me to continue to operate in some measure of safety in a legal sense, it's just best that I don't broach the concept of rights too much in any official and permanent comments, if that makes sense.
As I say, I don't describe the material as public domain or copyright free because I purposefully search out material from all over the world and there's many different laws involved.
I'm happy for you to arrive at your own conclusions : I don't believe after nearly 7 years I need to define things too much anyway. People can work out from what they see and what's in my header description. But I guess I'm just saying that you should back away from making an assertion such as 'bib is a copyright free image database' or the like.
I mean, I don't care a lot, but it's both not true and tends to put me at risk which defeats the purpose for which I believe you're highlighting the site. I don't want to put words in your mouth; you can say whatever you want, but I can't. I have to remain a bit aloof so that I don't have anyone coming back at me with "but you state this about rights on your site..." and confining me such as to prevent me from protecting myself and the site.
Not sure if all this makes sense. Obviously there are LOTS of images that ARE in the public domain. My big point in commenting is just to assert that "public domain" and "bibliodyssey" are NOT mutually inclusive terms.
Anyway, sorry to bang on about it. Although it's 100% my baby, BibliOdyssey is now an entity outside of myself and has a sort of integrity and rules that I not only have to defend, but also be bound by. You know that silly, fun expression, "what would ____ do?", well that's what I find myself doing from time to time and it's "what would BibliOdyssey do?". I can't even rely on my tastes and judgement all the time: I have to consult with the history of the site to judge whether some material is post-worthy (and it's psychotically remarkable how often *I* like something but it's rejected by BibliOdyssey).
Yes yes yes, this is all totally insane I know. Yet, I'm sure you also know what I mean.
'- )