Contribute (And Use) Public Domain Images

summetj writes "BurningWell.org is a repository for public domain ("free-for-any-use") images. If you need a high resolution digital image for any use, Browse the Images. If you have produced any high-resolution images that you are willing to place in the public domain, please Read the Donors FAQ."

Comments

Other free photography/imagery sites

[JeffHunt]

Don't forget http://www.sxc.hu and http://www.morguefile.com

Re:Great idea... BUT

[geminidomino]

RTFFAQ:

What's the policy on credit citations and watermarks? There is a photographer credit field that you can fill in when you upload the photo (name and email or url fields) which are displayed with the photograph. The Image User's FAQ encourages the users to give photo credit whenever possible, but, because it's public domain, you can't force people to behave nicely. Images with watermarks may be accepted if the watermark does not reduce the utility of the image or attempt to claim copyrights which have been expressly released by the process of releasing the photograph into the public domain.

If you want to REQUIRE that credit be granted for your images, then find a site that ISN'T asking for artists to put their images in the public domain. It is mutually exclusive with any form of licensing, even BSD-esque "Whatever you want as long as you give is credit" licensing.

Re:We need more artists on board

[lavaface]

As a musician and sometimes-graphics artist, I wholeheartedly support Creative Commons and Free Software. However, there is a subtle difference between the two and I can understand why many artists reservations about giving their work away. With software, you clearly benefit by having open source because the program you are working on is continually improved. You share those improvements. A photograph or illustration (for instance) is unlikely to be improved. Or rather it is unlikely that the creator will share benefit in future derivative works.

Granted, artists do benefit by a general spirit of openness and collaboration. The important caveat (for me at least) is that derivative works are non-commercial. Since by definition most artistic works are completed works, it doesn't seem right for someone to come along and use your music in a commercial or swipe a design for a t-shirt without anything in return other than the good feeling of sharing.

I like the idea of the texture library another poster mentioned, however. I have no qualms about offering "buliding blocks" for free, even if they are used commercially. By the same rationale, I don't mind sharing field recordings or random snippets or loops for free, as long as I get some attribution if they are used in other works (and hopefully a notice too!).

I hope this clears things up a little bit. Respond with any questions/counter-arguments you may have. : )