Artworks and images are protected by copyright law, but Fair Use (section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act) provides for certain cases where permission from the rights holder is not required. It is good practice to always look for a statement of permissible use and/or a suggested credit line before using the image.
Can't find any? If possible, contact the copyright holder to ask permission (hey, it never hurts!), or failing that, find an alternative resource.
Here are some resources to help you better understand copyright and fair use in the context of the visual arts:
U.S. Copyright Office (2022, Mar 22). Copyright for Visual Artists. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/uLHSjEkaPBY?si=JsaFwVL92z4qpF_-
Many images are made available via Creative Commons licenses, with various levels of use and remix restrictions.
There are six Creative Commons Licenses:
Attribution (CC-BY) Anyone is free to remix, redistribute, and even commercially use your work, so long as the new work attributes the original work and its author.
Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) Anyone is free to remix, redistribute, and even commercially use your work, so long as the new work attributes the original work and its author and the new works are shared under the same license. This keeps all material derived from your original work to also be open.
Attribution Non-Commercial (CC-BY-NC) Anyone is free to remix and redistribute your work, but not commercially, so long as the new work attributes the original work and its author.
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) - Anyone is free to remix and redistribute your work, but not commercially, so long as the new work attributes the original work and its author and the new works are shared under the same license. This keeps all material derived from your original work to be both open and non-commercial.
Attribution-NoDerivs (CC-BY-ND) Anyone is free to redistribute your work, even commercially, so long as the new work attributes the original work and its author. Remixes and other derivative works are not allowed.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC-BY-NC-ND) Anyone is free to redistribute your work, but not commercially, so long as the new work attributes the original work and its author. Remixes and other derivative works are not allowed.
**As noted in the graphic to the left, CC licenses with the ND element are not generally considered OER, since they cannot be changed, only free to share. They are the "least open" before traditional copyright.
Content adapted from Getting Started with OER by Jillian Maynard at the University of Hartford, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Images by creativecommons.org - http://creativecommons.org/about/downloads