Creative Commons (CC) licenses are intended to let copyright holders identify preemptively what types of uses are appropriate for their works.  When looking for materials to incorporate into a class project, it can be really helpful to specifically seek out works with CC licenses, because then there is no question about what permissions are granted for the work.  

Creative Commons Licenses - Find out more about the six different CC licenses and what they mean for your use of the work.  Since you will be using the work for educational purposes, you may use works that specify "non-commercial" uses only.

Choose a Creative Commons License for your own work - a tool that helps you decide the approriate CC license for your own materials.

If you're trying to find the source of an image, one thing that can help is to run a reverse image search. 

1. Save the image somewhere on the desktop of your computer.
2. Go to Google Images
3. Drag the image on to the Google search bar, it should change to say "Drop Image Here."
4. You'll see a list of results of pages that include the image you searched on. 

What is copyright?

 “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries” (U. S. Constitution). 

Copyright serves as a legal means of balancing the right of creators to benefit from the fruits of their labor with broader use of intellectual property that ultimately serves the larger societal benefit of progress.

Ownership of Course Materials You (or Your Group) Create:

“Individuals engaged in scholarly, pedagogical or creative efforts produce a great variety of copyrightable materials they may want to protect from unauthorized use. …When a member of the faculty or staff or a student authors a copyrightable work, that individual will own the copyright in the work….”  from https://apps.carleton.edu/handbook/communications/?policy_id=867534

Incorporating Copyrighted Materials in Publicly Available Projects:

While course projects are afforded “fair use” that allows for broader uses of copyrighted materials in the interest of larger societal benefits associated with education, class projects that will be made publicly available typically don’t qualify.  You will need to request permission use copyrighted materials. from https://apps.carleton.edu/campus/copyright/user/request_permission/

Images on the Internet are easy to download and copy, but that does not mean that they are not protected by copyright.  In fact, many images are under copyright and may not be used without permission. 

Look for statements of image use, often listed as "Terms and Conditions" or "Rights and Restrictions".  When in doubt, ask for permission!

When you find an image, make note of where you found it and what the rights for that image are. When you use an image, make sure that you give credit and note where the image is  from and what the rights are.