How to attribute photos from iNat

General
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I am writing a book that will include illustrations based on iNat photos, I am aware of the need to make sure that the photo is licensed in a way that I am allowed to do this, and attribute the photo consistent with the license, but I am unsure how to actually attribute it? Do I include the URL of the observation? Or of the photo? Seems I have to attribute the photo directly, not the observation, since the observation could have a different license than the photo, but how do I do this? The photo link is an amazon web services URL (eg https://inaturalist-open-data.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/243442369/large.jpg) so if iNat’s image hosting ever changed, this URL would no longer work, however I know of no other way to refer to a photo directly, as opposed to an observation.

What am I supposed to do here?

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Looks like if I change the link like this I link directly to the photo on iNat https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/243442369?size=large

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@humanbyweight has made a couple field guides and has used iNat observations as photo references for illustrations. The way they decided to do it was reference the observer, rather than the photo or observation, with a note at the bottom of the page like “Photo References: CUIC, iNaturalist: David Tilson (swampster), …”

Not saying this is the only way, just a way I’ve seen it done previously.

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I think the way I have seen that works best to me is to cite the user and license on the photo itself and then have a table/appendix with links/formatted info at the end.

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This is a marvelous reference. (I believe @tiwane has referred to iNaturalist as “social media” but I have tagged him so he can correct me if I am mistaken.)

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I do not know the legalities.
I can offer my opinion.
You are making your own illustrations to be published, those are based on iNat observations.
Since you are not publishing the photographs you could have attribution to the photographer. That’s all I would ask, since the work you are publishing is yours. Of course, on iNat you can contact the photographers and ask to be sure. I assume your illustrations will have copyrights at publication also.

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What do you mean by this?

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I am not Jan but I think it is a fairly straightforward statement? That since you are

the artwork contained within presumably would also be under its own copyright at publication.

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I can also provide only an opinion and no legal advice: Since you probably will not be infringing any copyrights or licenses by making these kinds of illustrations, I think it comes down to how you like it.

Personally, I’ve used iNat photos for presentations I held at uni and attributed them with: “<species name> | © <photographer name and/or iNat handle>, inaturalist.org, <license>”

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That’s exactly what I meant!

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I plan to license the illustrations under some form of creative commons license, some will be CC-BY-SA since the reference images are CC-BY-SA

I’m not just using the photos as general inspiration, I’m actually tracing the outline of the imaged organism to make the proportions 100% realistic, so I think my image may count as a derivative work, thus implicating copyright.

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For reference, this is your previous thread regarding a similar question:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/how-to-cite-inat-images-used-as-template-for-illustrations-in-book/58419

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I knew I had made a thread before but could not find it

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As iNat uses CC-licenses you may want to consult the recommended attribution practices published by the CC org: https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Recommended_practices_for_attribution - this has a clear 4-point test you can use. You can also check the legal terms directly, I find they are relatively understandable for being legalese: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.en (the attribution requirements are identical between BY and BY-SA)

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