Research Guides: Wikipedia Editing: Images

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Public Domain and Creative Commons Images

These large databases contain millions of images on many subjects, almost all images are either in the public domain (made before 1928) and thus can be used without restriction, or made available under a creative commons license which allows free reuse with certain restrictions such as always attributing the creator.

Creative Commons Search
Can a search a variety of web databases for creative commons licensed content
Digital Public Library of America
Brings together the digitized images and media of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world.
Europeana
An internet portal that acts as an interface to millions of books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records that have been digitised.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
The digitized images from the Library of Congress includes photographs, fine and popular prints and drawings, posters and architectural and engineering drawings. While international in scope, the collections are particularly rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, the United States and the lives, interests and achievements of the American people.
Wellcome Library
Over 100,000 high resolution images including manuscripts, paintings, etchings, early photography and advertisements are freely available through Wellcome Images. All CC-BY
Flickr Commons
Collection of openly available images.
Smart History Flickr Photos
High quality art photos curated by Smart History, available under creative commons licenses.

Adding Wikimedia Commons Images

Wikipedia pulls images that are stored on its sister site: Wikimedia Commons If you want to add an image to an article, it’s easiest if you can find images that are already available Wikimedia Commons. You can simply go to Insert: Media and search for images you’d like to add. You can also search Wikimedia Commons for images.

Uploading your own Images

If you can’t find an already uploaded image, you can upload images to Wikimedia Commons. Importantly, copyright restrictions apply, and for the most part you will only be able to upload images you took yourself, not images that you have found on the web (with a few exceptions - see next section). If you have an image you took you can upload it in the visual editor, by clicking insert (also shown as a + icon): media, and then clicking the upload tab

Uploading Free to Use Images

You can upload free works to Wikimedia Commons and use them in your Wikipedia article. Free works are generally either:

Works in the public domain (that means created before 1926 in the United States - NOT that it is generally available on the internet). Find Public Domain works in digital libraries such as:

Works that have been made available under a Creative Commons license, you can search for cc-licensed images here:

https://search.creativecommons.org/

If you are uploading free works (public domain or creative commons) upload your file to Wikimedia Commons here: Wikimedia Commons Uploader then you’ll be able to add it to your Wikipedia article like normal.

Fair Use & Non-free Works

Wikipedia allows editors to claim Fair Use (the legal but unauthorized use of copyrighted material) in using images to illustrate articles. You can read about using non-free works under fair use here. In order to claim fair use these conditions should apply:

The file will serve an important function in a particular article - the image is important to understanding the topic of the article.
It cannot be replaced by any other, free illustration that might yet be created
Its use does not negatively affect the commercial interests of its owner
There will not be more non-free material used than necessary - small image size and resolution, and not more images than necessary for the article.

If you planning to claim fair use to use a non-free work you should upload it to Wikipedia here: Non-Free Image Uploader