When selecting images, music, or any other creative work that is not yours, like YouTube video clips, tweets, and  .gifs, remember to be LARK: Legal, Appropriate, Responsible, and Kind.

The resources below will help you abide by LARK guidelines. LARK ensures that you find copyright-friendly images and music and that you will be able to cite or attribute works properly.

A citation is formal, while an attribution is informal. The purpose is to give credit to those whose work you've benefited from, and to allow other people to find what you found. The best attributions include the four pieces of information in TASL: Title, Author, Source, and License.

The key emoji 🔑 indicates a resource paid for by the library or another HW department.

General Information

HW Guide to Copyright and Fair Use

Getting Permission, from CopyrightKids.org

Find Images

Britannica ImageQuest 🔑: We pay for an ImageQuest license, so their images are copyright-friendly for you to use even though they aren't Creative Commons or public domain. When attributing ImageQuest images, you can put "For education use only" as the License (part of TASL).

Storyblocks 🔑 (click the link in this document): Photos, illustrations, and vector images.

Flickr: Creative Commons: Search Flickr (an online photo sharing service). To filter your search to view only copyright-friendly images, click "Any license" and choose a different type.

Creative Commons Search: Creative Commons has collected the search pages of other services (like Flickr and Wikipedia), so you can access them all from one place to find those platforms' copyright-friendly media.

Google Advanced Image Search: Search using the Usage Rights category, then visit the image's page to double-check that it's copyright-friendly. (Google makes mistakes!)

Find Video & Audio

Videoblocks and Audioblocks 🔑 (click the links in this document): Stock footage, animated backgrounds, and After Effects templates from Videoblocks. Music, sound effects, and loops from Audioblocks.

Universal Production Music 🔑 (use the username and password from this document): Copyright-friendly music to use for your school projects.

Filmmusic.io: Royalty-free music requiring only an attribution (translation: just say where you got it, and it's free!).

Check on a Movie

If movies are being used for entertainment or reward, a license is needed.

Movie Licensing USA: Check whether the movie you would like to show is included in our license.