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Fair Use and Creative Commons for Images

What is copyright?

Copyright is a legal framework that gives creators the exclusive right to control how their original work is used, shared, adapted, or sold. These protections begin as soon as the work is created and fixed in a tangible form (like saved, written, recorded, or printed).

In the U.S., copyright law has roots in early 18th-century England and was first established here in the USA in 1790. Most modern copyright law is based on the Copyright Act of 1976, which is still the foundation of how creative work is protected today.

🔗 Read the full Copyright Act

What Can Be Copyrighted?

Not everything can be copyrighted. To qualify, a work must meet three key requirements:

  1. Originality: The work must be created by the author—not copied from someone else—and show at least a small amount of creativity
  2. Expression (Not Just an Idea): Copyright protects how an idea is expressed—not the idea itself. For example, you can’t copyright the idea of “a dragon in a cave,” but you can copyright your unique drawing or story about it.
  3. Fixation: The work must be recorded or "fixed" in a tangible form (like written down, saved as a file, painted on canvas, etc.). If it’s improvised and never recorded, it’s not protected.

Examples of things that can’t be copyrighted:

  • Fonts

  • Blank forms

  • Useful layouts (like menus or calendars)

  • Short phrases or slogans

  • Works that haven’t been recorded or saved

 

If your work meets the three criteria above and is fixed in a tangible form—you’re covered! No registration is required, though registering your work gives you additional legal benefits if you ever need to defend your rights.

For individuals, copyright lasts for your lifetime plus 70 years.

If two or more people are the creators of a work, they all jointly hold copyright. That means that any profit a single rightsholder makes from the work must be shared equally, and that any licenses of the work must be granted by all of the rightsholders. To transfer the rights to just one of the rightsholders, they must all agree.

If you are "working for hire", or creating works for an employer or as a commission, the person employing you is the rightsholder. Usually this will happen when you're acting within the scope of your employment, such as if you are a graphic designer, or if you are contributing to a collective work and you and the commissioner have agreed in writing that it's going to be treated like a work for hire.

 

See more FAQs from copyright.gov

What rights does a copyright holder have?

You (or the copyright owner) can control:

  1. Reproducing the work (e.g., making copies)

  2. Creating derivative works (like a remix, film adaptation, or translation)

  3. Distributing the work (selling, licensing, or sharing copies)

  4. Performing the work publicly (for music, theater, film, etc.)

  5. Displaying the work publicly (for art, writing, audiovisual works)

  6. Streaming audio (digital sound performance rights for sound recordings)

These rights can be licensed, sold, or retained however the copyright holder chooses.

Note: There are exceptions and limitations—like fair use, educational use, and works in the public domain. More on those elsewhere in this guide!

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Subjects: Art + Design, Journalism