Intellectual Property and the Arts

IMAGE SOURCES AND RIGHTS CLEARANCE AGENCIES

This section lists well-known sources for images for academic and scholarly use with a focus on images suitable for publication. There is an increasing trend on the part of museums to open their archives of public domain images and offer these images free for academic publications, provided they fit certain criteria such as a limited print run. Many institutions discount fees for academic publications, and fee-based image banks frequently have similar policies. Many image banks have reciprocal arrangements with non-US collections.

Users must clear rights for images still under copyright. Agencies that perform this function for a fee are listed at the end of this section. Like some image banks, many agencies have arrangements with agencies in other countries; the Artists Rights Society (ARS), for example, may be able to administer non-US rights.

Whenever possible, the links below take the researcher directly to information regarding terms and conditions; otherwise links lead to the homepage of the organization.

For articles and discussions about image licensing, and the movement toward free images for scholarly publishing, please see the sections entitled “Publishing in the Visual Arts” and “Libraries, Archives, and Museums.”