Digital Citizenship: Respecting Creative Work
Being a responsible digital citizen means knowing our rights and responsibilities as both creators and consumers of media. We show respect for intellectual property when we:
Share, remix, or reuse media only when we have permission.
Credit original creators whenever we use their work.
Understand the rules around copyright, fair use, and public domain.
Learn More
Watch: Creativity, Copyright, and Fair Use (Common Sense Education)
Explore: 10 Things You Should Know About Copyright from copyrightandcreativity.org
Key Vocabulary
Copyright: Legal protection that creators have over their original work.
Public Domain: Creative works not covered by copyright, free to use without permission.
Fair Use: Limited use of copyrighted work without permission, under certain conditions:
Purpose: The new work is educational or significantly transformed.
Nature: The original is factual or nonfiction (not highly creative).
Amount: Only a small portion of the work is used—not the “heart” of it.
Effect: The new use doesn’t harm the creator’s market or the value of the original.
For more information, see:
Flat Icon: https://www.flaticon.com/
Iconfinder: https://www.iconfinder.com/free_icons
Noun Project: https://thenounproject.com/
Public Domain Vectors: https://publicdomainvectors.org/
Creative Commons: https://search.creativecommons.org/
Free Public Domain: https://freepd.com/
Jamendo: https://www.jamendo.com/?language=en
Library of Congress SONIC: https://star1.loc.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder/0
Creative Commons: https://search.creativecommons.org/
Flickr Commons: https://www.flickr.com/commons
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/
Library of Congress Science Images and Videos: https://guides.loc.gov/science-images-and-videos
National Gallery of Art: https://www.nga.gov/open-access-images.html
Open Access Biomedical Image Search Engine: https://openi.nlm.nih.gov/
Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/
Photos for Class: https://www.photosforclass.com/
Pics4Learning: https://www.pics4learning.com/
Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/
School Photo Project: http://www.schoolphotoproject.com/
Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/
Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Tip: In Google Images, filter by “Usage Rights” and select Creative Commons licenses.
Source: Common Sense Education
Database Advantage
You can also search for images through Britannica, Gale, and ProQuest. These databases provide ready-to-use citations for easy crediting.
And remember: stock images included in Adobe Express, Canva, Google Suite, and iMovie are approved for use in your projects.