So Where Do You Get *YOUR* Stuff?

Melanie posted earlier about her favorite photo online storage and organizing sites. The CTL also has in the past offered workshops on how to obtain content for use with instructional projects that is legal and honors copyright law.

I’d like to quickly add a few to the list that I’ve found helpful over the past year or so.

James introduced me to the Stock.xchnge (Stock Exchange) website which is a community of photographers that take photographs in likely hope and form of a stock photo (one that is suitable for professional publication) and then share them online.

Since it is a community that expects exposure to their work, photographs that are shared can be flagged at several different levels of restriction. From a consumer perspective, one can go and register on the site to search for and download high-quality images for use in websites and PowerPoint presentations. One caveat is that many of the users require permission for use. While I’ve not had to use a photo that falls in this category from this site, usually people that ask for permission don’t mind giving it to you if it’s used for non-commercial purposes.

However, there are a slew of users who just don’t mind sharing at all and place no restrictions on the use of their photos. Even though there are no restrictions on these, you should ALWAYS give credit to the creative people behind these photos if you decide to use them, though. A simple disclaimer or tag at the bottom of a web page or PowerPoint slide should be sufficient.

Just to show you what good pictures you can find for free, here are a few:

(Shared by Lusi from http://www.sxc.hu/profile/lusi)

(Shared by Vierdrie http://www.sxc.hu/profile/vierdrie)

To me this is safer than going to Google Images since there is no possible copyright violation.

I’d like to hear of any other content repositories that people have found to be useful.