Public domain searchable images

August 28, 2024 12:52 PM

I'm trying to find a free image of a specific thing (call it a widget) that I can use for a project and distribute freely without worrying about license or copyright. I want an artwork rendition of the widget, not a photo. There are many drawings and paintings of widgets in the world.

When I do a google search for "Image widget free public domain" I get a lot of "may be subject to copyright" and "licensable" mixed in with images that seem actually to be free or in the public domain.
Is there a better way to search this?

posted by ojocaliente to Media & Arts (7 answers total)

You can check whether the Wikimedia Commons has the type of picture you want. They always list the exact licenses for each image.
posted by CompanionCube at 1:10 PM on August 28 [2 favorites]

When I am in this situation, I always go to Wikimedia Commons first. If it does not have what I want, then I check unsplash.com and pixabay.com. BUT sometimes people upload images in one of those sites that are not really free to use. So before I use anything from either unsplash or pixabay, I do a reverse image search on them. Because they are free, they are often widely used, so what I'm looking for is one site that appears to be an "owner."

I want to share that in my work, we are required to use images that we have paid a license for. The reason for this is it ensures that we are following the right requirements -- we can't accidentally use an image that is copyrighted without applying for permission. The stakes for this sort of thing in my work are high. The tolerance in your setting might be different.
posted by OrangeDisk at 1:22 PM on August 28

In the search results page for Google Images, click Tools. This brings up a small toolbar, which has the option to sort by Usage Rights. Choose Creative Commons licenses.

Flickr.com also has the option to sort by license after you've returned search results for your widgets.
posted by hydra77 at 1:43 PM on August 28 [1 favorite]

https://public.work has public domain images from the Met, NYPL, and other institutions. Maybe your widget illustration is included!
posted by icebergs at 2:35 PM on August 28 [2 favorites]

If you are in the US you can also check the Library of Congress for "Free to Use and Reuse" - they have many collections under that name. I don't think they check really closely if you're a US taxpayer, but I am not certain of that.
posted by TimHare at 2:42 PM on August 28 [1 favorite]

If the widget has been patented in the US, the patent artwork is public domain.

Google Patents is probably the easiest way to search.
posted by Ookseer at 7:19 PM on August 28 [1 favorite]

Depending on the use case it could be useful to search for public domain icons or open source icons (there is for example healthicons.org for CC0-licensed healthcare related stuff which I've used previously). There is also iconify.design which claims to host "over 200,000 open source vector icons".
posted by fridgebuzz at 2:53 AM on August 29