Digital Images: How to Find Them (A How-to Guide): Copyright and Citation

The DePaul Writing Center works with writers on many kinds of projects; from research papers and lab reports to Master's theses and personal projects.

The use of images for teaching and scholarly research generally falls under the category of "fair use." The terms of fair use states that, in an educational context, the payment of fees or permission is not required from copyright owners.

Images from databases with access limited to the Depaul University community, such as Shared Shelf and ARTstor, generally fall within the bounds of educational fair use.

For more information, the Visual Resources Association (VRA) has published a Statement on Fair Use of Images for Teaching, Research, and Study. This statement is a guideline and should not be considered a legal document.

There are different rules for publishing images. If you are using images for publication, you must determine if they are in the public domain, or are protected by copyright.

The Visual Resources Association have also developed a Digital Image Rights Computator (DIRC) to help users assess the intellectural property status of a particular image so they can make informed decisions about the intended educational use of an image.