Public Domain Image Archive

by davidbarker • 2 months ago

261 29 2 months ago

neilv3• 2 months ago

Does anyone know how easily you can do "copyright clearance" for these supposedly public domain images?

For example, the page for the first image I clicked on said:

    Date
    1833

    Underlying Rights
    Public Domain Worldwide

    Digital Rights
    No Additional Rights

    * Source states “no known restrictions”
    * We offer this info as guidance only

with a link to: https://pdimagearchive.org/reusing-images/

If, for example, you design the cover of a self-published book around such an image, is Amazon KDP going to reject it, because they don't accept that screenshot as sufficient proof of rights?

mmh00003• 2 months ago

Just contact the original author. You may need to pay extra for the Medium.

bawolff2• 2 months ago

I know this is a joke, but just as a note, in some european countries, the person who digitized the artwork may have a copyright. It varries a bit by country.

wongarsu• 2 months ago

Search for public records about the image. If you can confirm the author is dead for at least 70 years (in case the author originally held the copyright) and the work is at least 120 years old or was published more than 95 years ago (in case this was work for hire) you are good

For younger works other conditions might make a work public domain, like the work being created by a US federal government employee as part of their duties

driverdan• 2 months ago

Go to the source, it's linked above that metadata. That will be a better resource for its copyright status.

mmh00003• 2 months ago

I do not know how this site managed to break mousewheel scrolling so badly, but I am quite impressed.

vibcdingenjoyer• 2 months ago

I haven’t tried it on desktop but on mobile, the “infinite” view is quite nice.

mmh00003• 2 months ago

On desktop Firefox, if you scroll while the mouse is on the top half of the first row of images, it goes very wonky.

woogiegie• 2 months ago

Same here, the scroll behavior in Infinite View is really ...

jamwise• 2 months ago

I don't know if I'll ever use this but that "Infinite View" is a lot of fun, I just lost 20 minutes before snapping myself out of a trance. Some really cool pictures in there.

rectang• 2 months ago

There are lots of sites that provide images that somebody has claimed are public domain. But for significant use, you what you really need is provenance documentation.

These folks seem to be more up-front about the issue than many sites I’ve seen:

https://pdimagearchive.org/reusing-images/

On each image page we communicate to the best of our knowledge the rights status of both the underlying work and the digital copy of this work. We provide this information based on a basic knowledge of copyright law and what is communicated by the source institution — it is strictly meant as a guideline and it should not be taken as legal advice. We admit no responsibility for any untoward consequences that may arise through reuse of material featured on our site. If you are requiring certainty as to usage allowed for an image, then you are encouraged to check with the source institution and make your own investigations.

bentley• 2 months ago

Standard Ebooks has a database of public domain oil paintings for use as book covers. SE is strict about copyright clearance and requires either scans of a copyright‐expired publication containing the painting, or an explicit statement from a reputable museum that the work is CC0. Here’s an entry I contributed:

https://standardebooks.org/artworks/arthur-i-keller/calvin-c...

robin_reala• 2 months ago

To be specific, this is US public domain only (which is globally non-standard).

samcgraw• 2 months ago

This is just the kind of thing I love about the open internet: the insane amount of art available in archives, (e.g. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/, https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en, the Met, etc).

Adding this to the list for one of my side projects[0].

[0] https://flaneur.ink

troupo• 2 months ago

For your sife project, it would be nice to see a preview of what you're sending

Edit: I saw the small link to examples :)

helterskelter• 2 months ago

Looks like PDR finally implemented the "buy a giclée print of anything" feature! Previously you could only buy prints of select works.

sourcecodeplz• 2 months ago

Don't websites like these popup every year, almost same images, different design? You never actually know if you can really use those images for free actually..

dvh• 2 months ago

“An old Welsh woman made out of a banana with a nut for her head. The cat is made from two nuts and some matches.”: https://pdimagearchive.org/images/f658baa9-14be-4002-8b13-78...

AltruisticGapHN• 2 months ago

Superb site. Just annoying in the Infinite View it keeps opening random pages when I just want to drag and scroll.

brettermeier• 2 months ago

Unfortunately, the infinite scroll page doesn't work very well... but this one scrolls normal and doesn't open random pages, and it seems to be the same stream of picutures: https://pdimagearchive.org/galleries/all/random/desc

ezekiel68• 2 months ago

I had no trouble with it once I realized it wanted me to drag the border area.

dukeofdoom• 2 months ago

This is great, came across an image of a Labyrinth, which led me to a 1920s book about Labyrinths. I'm currently making a game level with hedge mazes. Thanks.

alentodorov• 2 months ago

feels so refreshing to see a website without the obvious-ai elements.

geoffbp• 2 months ago

The infinite view is cool, a bit addictive :)

Public Domain Image Archive

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