Need images for your presentations, online learning modules, or teaching and training materials? This directory of image sources can help you find images that make it easy to satisfy copyright requirements.
For more information on attribution, see our Image Citation Guide.
Public Domain and Creative Commons Resources
The following resources offer collections of images that fall into one of the following copyright categories:
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- Public Domain (PD): works for which copyright has expired, or been waived by the copyright holder.
- Creative Commons (CC): works that have been permissively licensed and made available for reuse. These items are still under copyright and reuse may have certain conditions. For instance, you must always provide attribution when reusing a CC-licensed image; for more information on attributing images, see our guide on how to cite images.
Images in either of these categories may, in many cases, be used on public UBC websites with minimal copyright concerns. To be safe, remember to always double-check the licensing conditions of individual items. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
General (All subjects)
| Source | LMS? | Public site? | What is it? | Special Considerations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creative Commons Search | Yes | Yes, with citation | A meta-search tool. Can be used to find CC-licensed images on Google Images, Fotopedia, Europeana, etc. | Remember to verify that works are CC-licensed by following the links to resources that appear in your results. |
| Flickr Creative Commons Search | Yes | Yes, with citation | Use the “Any License” drop down menu to search for CC-licensed images. | Look under the “Additional Info” on an image page for licensing info and terms of use. |
| The Flickr Commons | Yes | Yes, with citation | Public domain photography collections supplied by libraries and museums from around the world. Sample: the Biodiversity Heritage Library. |
Images are all in the public domain, and have no known copyright restrictions. |
| Foodie’s Feed | Yes | Yes | Free food photography. | Photos are licensed under CC License Zero. Can be used for commercial purposes. |
| Gratisography | Yes | Yes | Free high resolution images. | Can be used for personal and commercial projects. See terms here. |
| ISO Republic | Yes | Yes | Free high-quality, copyright-free photos. | Can be used for personal and commercial projects. See terms here. |
| The Noun Project | Yes | Yes, with citation | An extensive collection of Creative Commons-licensed icons and symbols. | Icons may be licensed under different CC licenses, so check each license for terms of reuse. A citation will be provided for you when you download an image. |
| Open Street Map | Yes, with citation | Yes, with citation | User-generated maps and data from around the world, free to use under an open license. | See the Copyright and License page for information on how you can use these images and data. |
| Picjumbo | Yes | Yes | Free stock photos for personal and commercial use. Search by categories including animals, food, technology, and more. | Attribution appreciated. Most uses allowed. See terms of use here. |
| Picography | Yes | Yes | Free, hi-resolution photos. Subscribe to get new photos delivered to your inbox each month. | No restrictions on use. |
| Pixabay | Yes | Yes | Photos and clip art published free of copyright restrictions. | Note that sponsored Shutterstock images are also shown during searches but are not free of copyright restrictions. Those images are marked with a gray background and display the Shutterstock logo. See terms of use here. |
| Startup Stock Photos | Yes | Yes, with citation | Free photos of start-up culture, people working, office spaces, etc. | Photos published under CC License 4.0. Can be used for commercial use. |
| Superfamous | Yes | Yes, with citation | Mostly geological, biological, nature, and aerial photos. | Photos licensed under CC License 3.0. |
| Travel Coffee Book | Yes | Yes | Free travel photos from around the world. 10 new photos every 10 days. You can download all released photos at once. | All photos are licensed under CC License Zero. Can be used for commercial purposes. |
| Unsplash | Yes | Yes | Free high-resolution stock photos depicting a wide variety of subjects. 10 new photos are released every 10 days. | Attribution appreciated. Most uses allowed. See terms of use here. |
| Wellcome Images | Yes, with citation | Yes, with citation | CC BY 2.0 and CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licensed images of thousands of years of human culture. | See “Terms of Use” for instructions on attribution. Verify license before use. |
| Wikimedia Commons | Yes | Yes | 20 million freely usable image, sound, and video files. All files are Public Domain or CC-licensed. |
Check the “Licensing” section for an image to find any terms and conditions for reuse / instructions on attribution. |
Art and History
| Source | LMS? | Public site? | What is it? | Special Considerations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ArtStor’s Public Collections | Varies | Varies | Artstor’s ever-growing public collections offer approximately 1.3 million freely accessible images, videos, documents, and audio files from library special collections, faculty research, and institutional history materials, as well as hundreds of thousands of open access images from partner museums. | Content comes from many different collections and each has its own license. All of the images can be viewed and downloaded without restrictions, but you should consult the rights data in each record to see if and how an image can be reused. |
| Europeana | Varies | Varies | An enormous treasure trove of historical digital resources from museums, galleries, and archives throughout Europe. Photos, artworks, drawings, objects, documents, and films. | Many images are in the public domain or have permissive licenses, but check individual images for terms of use (some are not openly licensed). The advanced search tool allows users to filter by images that can be freely and openly used or by specific license. |
| Flickr Commons | Yes | Yes | Public domain photography collections supplied by many libraries, galleries, and museums from around the world. | Images are all in the public domain, and have no known copyright restrictions. |
| French Revolution Digital Archive | Yes | Varies | The Images of the French Revolution resource is composed of about 14000 images of items such as prints, illustrations, medals, coins, and other objects. | Free of charge for non-commercial use, please contact utilisation.commerciale@bnf.fr for commercial uses. |
| Getty Open Content Program | Yes | No | The Getty has made 4,600 high-resolution images of their museum collection free to use, modify, and publish for any purpose. Includes paintings, manuscripts, photographs, sculpture, etc. | From the Search Gateway, select the link for “Open Content Images”, which allows for images available for reuse. Images should be attributed with the statement “Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program”. |
| Internet Archive Book Images | Yes | Yes | Millions of historical images from books scanned by the Internet Archive are available and searchable via tags on Flickr. The pictures date from 1500 to 1922 and include historical photos and drawings. | Images are all in the public domain, and have no known copyright restrictions. |
| Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection Online | Yes | Yes | As part of its Open Access for Scholarly Content (OASC) initiative, the Met now provides access to 400,000 high-resolution digital images of public domain works in its collection. Works covered by the policy are identified on the Museum’s website with the acronym OASC and can be used freely and without permission for non-commercial use, including scholarly/educational uses in any media. Includes iconic paintings, photographs, etchings, sculpture, etc. | Image citations must include the creator and source and the URL “www.metmuseum.org.” The website’s terms and conditions stipulate that images should not be modified and cannot be used for commercial purposes. |
| Museum of New Zealand Collections Online | Yes | Yes | The museum, also called Te Papa Tongarewa, has made 30,000 high-resolution images from their collection available for download and reuse under a CC BY-NC-ND licence. | At the Search Gateway, select the button for “with downloadable images”, which allows for images available for reuse. Select the image, then select the “download” button beneath the image. The attribution statement will be provided on the download page. |
| New Old Stock | Yes | Yes | Cole Townsend curates this collection of vintage photos from public archives. The images are free of known copyright restrictions. | Clicking on the link under each image will take you to its original post on Flickr, where you can get more information about the image. See Flickr’s statement about public photo archives in the Flickr Commons, which have indicated “no known copyright restrictions.” |
| Open Glam Open Collections | Yes | Varies | OpenGLAM (Open Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) curates an extensive list of Open Collections from several cultural institutions. | See licensing information from individual institutions for applicable terms of reuse. |
| the Smithsonian Institute | Yes | Yes | More than 2.8 million 2D and 3D images from the Smithsonian collections. | Images that are marked CC0 have no copyright restrictions. |
| Trove–National Library of Australia | Varies | Varies | Close to 400,000,000 digital resources including many images, primarily from Australia. Also includes books, maps, music, historic newspapers. | Limit your search to “freely available” content using the advanced search. See each resource for specific licensing information. |
Sciences
| Source | LMS? | Public site? | What is it? | Special Considerations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Encyclopedia of Life | Varies | Varies | A collaborative online encyclopaedia with entries on all kinds of biological entities on Earth | In most cases, content is made available under a Creative Commons license. Check the license for any applicable terms of reuse. |
| Earth Science World Image Bank | Yes | No | Maintained by the American Geological Institute (AGI), and provides over 6,000 quality geoscience images. | Images are copyrighted, but contributing photographers to allow their images to be used for non-commercial purposes. For full terms, see their Image Use page. |
| NASA Images | Yes | Yes | NASA Images provides public access to NASA’s image, video, and audio collections in a single online resource. (See also: NASA on Flickr Commons). | NASA imagery is generally not protected by copyright, so you are free to use it for educational or informational purposes. Note: this permission does not extend to any use of the NASA logo. |
| BioMed Central | Yes | Yes, with citation | Not an image database. An online publisher of open access biology and medical journals which are Creative-Commons licensed. Figures and graphs in articles are also CC-licensed and available for reuse. | Tables and figures published in articles on BioMed Central are available for use under the same CC-BY 2.0 or (starting Feb. 3, 2014) CC-BY 4.0 license as the journal articles. Advance permission is not required, but be sure to include a full citation. |
| PLOS One | Yes | Yes, with citation | Not an image database. An online publisher of open access biology and medical journals which are Creative-Commons licensed. Figures and graphs in articles are also CC-licensed and available for reuse. | Tables and figures published in articles on PLOS One are available for use under the same CC-BY 3.0 license as the journal articles. Advance permission is not required, but be sure to include a full citation. |
| Morphbank: Biological Imaging | Yes, with citation | Yes, with citation | An open web repository of images for use in international collaboration, research, and education in the biological community. Images not password-protected are CC-licensed | Images are available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license, or under a less restrictive license. Password-protected images may not be used without written authorization from copyright holder. |
UBC Licensed Resources
Note that images taken from UBC library resources are generally licensed for educational use only. As a result, these resources are useful for course development (posting to a learning management system or creating handouts, for instance) in most cases, but will be of less use to anyway developing a public UBC website or blog (for this use-case, see the resources under Public Domain / Creative Commons).
General Sources (all subjects)
| Source | LMS? | Public site? | What is it? | Special Considerations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gale Associated Press Collections Online | Yes | Varies. Ask us. |
A database of world events and press images spanning over 185 years. Includes photographs, audio sound bites, graphics and text. | For license terms of use and permitted uses see the Library’s licensing info page for Getty Associated Press Collections Online. |
| Academic Search Complete | Yes | No | A database of scholarly materials containing images. Filter by photographs from the search screen to return results that contain images. | For license terms of use and permitted uses see the Library’s licensing info page for Academic Search Complete. |
Art and History
| Source | LMS? | Public site? | What is it? | Special Considerations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Archivision | Yes | No | Archivision is a database of over 80,000 high quality, professionally photographed images of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, archaeology, and design. It covers significant Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, 18th and 19th Century, Islamic and Modern and contemporary sites. | For license terms of use and permitted uses see the Library’s licensing info page for Archivision. |
| ARTstor | Yes | No | A digital library of over 1 million images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences. | For license terms of use and permitted uses see the Library’s licensing info page for ARTstor. |
| Berg Fashion Library | Yes | No | Includes an extensive colour image bank with thumbnails that link through to enhanced content. | For license terms of use and permitted uses see the Library’s licensing info page for Berg Fashion Library. |
| Grove Art Online | Yes | No | An online scholarly art encyclopedia. Contains over 45,000 articles and images on every aspect of the visual arts. | For license terms of use and permitted uses see the Library’s licensing info page for Oxford University Press Databases. |
| Early Encounters North America | Yes | No (may seek permission) | Documents the relationships among peoples in North America from 1534 to 1850. | For license terms of use and permitted uses see the Library’s licensing info page for Early Encounters North America. |
| Native American Archives | Yes | No | Provides more than 1.8 million pages of original historical documents pertaining to Native American history and life from the 18th through the 20th century. | For license terms of use and permitted uses see the Library’s licensing info page for EBSCO Publishing Direct Resources. |
Sciences
| Source | LMS? | Public site? | What is it? | Special Considerations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Global Plants | No | No | Global Plants is the world’s largest database of digitized plant specimens and a locus for international scientific research and collaboration. | For license terms of use and permitted uses see the Library’s licensing info page for Global Plants. |
Image Use: General
Using images in your work differs from using textual resources. Very rarely do you want to use a portion of the image, the way you do when using quotations from text. More commonly you want to use the whole image, which is considered copying the whole work. This usage requires permission from the copyright holder; however, there are a few exceptions in the Canadian Copyright Act which allow the use of materials without first obtaining permission.
Fair Dealing
The Fair Dealing exception in the Copyright Act allows copying for the purposes of research, private study, education, satire, parody, criticism, review, or news reporting. The user must give the source of the work and, if provided in the source, the author, performer, maker or broadcaster. Copies made under Fair Dealing generally cannot be transmitted or distributed to another person, unless unless you are a UBC instructor distributing materials to your students in accordance with the Fair Dealing Requirements for UBC Faculty and Staff.
Educational Uses
The Educational Exceptions in the Copyright Act allow for:
- Temporary display of copyrighted images in the classroom for instructional purposes as long as the source and creator (or copyright holder) is credited. However, this exception is only available for manual reproduction of images, and for works that are not commercially available on the Canadian market within a reasonable time and for a reasonable price, in a medium appropriate for education or training purposes.
- Use of images for assessment purposes, such as an assignment, test, or exam, as long as there isn’t an acceptable commercial alternative in an appropriate format for testing.
- Use of images from public websites for classroom presentations, or for posting into a UBC secure learning management system (for educational or training purposes), as long as you satisfy the following three criteria:
- You do not break or circumvent a digital lock to access or obtain a copy of the work (see FAQ 3.3);
- There is no clear and visible notice on the website or on the work itself that prohibits the use or reproduction of the work (more than just a copyright symbol);
- The website is not questionable, infringing or clearly using the works without the copyright owner’s consent; and
- You identify the source of the work and, if available and applicable, the author, performer, maker or broadcaster of the work.
Please note that these exceptions may not apply to images taken from UBC Library’s licensed electronic resources, including e-journals and e-books. To view the permitted uses for images and other content from licensed e-resources, please visit the Library’s Licence Information page.
It is also important to remember that the Fair Dealing Requirements and UBC’s digital licences generally do not permit you to upload to a website, or create links on a website, that is not part of UBC’s secure network, and that is open to the world at large.
Finally, when using images, it is always good practice to cite the image owner/creator and the image source both for copyright and academic integrity reasons. When looking for images online, always assume images are copyrighted unless there is evidence to the contrary.
