Is it Permissable to use Photos Uploaded to iNaturalist as Project Icons & Banners?

General
1

Not sure if this is the correct category. What are the copyright issues in regard to just grabbing an image of an observation for a project about that or similar species?

2

The type of Creative Commons license chosen by any given user for the photo should determine this. However, in my opinion, it’s always preferable to ask - not everyone understands the CC licensing process. I have been asked on a few occasions to use one of my photos for various purposes, and I have always said yes.

4 Likes
3

Perfectly stated. :)

I once had another user ask my opinion on which photos to use for the banner and thumbnail of a project. We had seen some fitting ones, but they were in blog post or non-iNat forum posts. I went and searched for some that were available for non-commercial use under CC and/or were public domain.

4

I always use my own photos, but I’m sure most users wouldn’t have a problem with you using their photos if you ask and attribute them.

1 Like
5

You can search observations by photo license here:

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From my amateur understanding:

  • Anything in public domain (CC0) can be used for any purpose with no attribution required.
  • Any of the other CC licenses that are not share-alike (SA) or non-derivative (ND) can be used, but you need to provide attribution to the photographer and a reference to the CC license somewhere obvious.
  • SA means if you edit photos in some way or use it as part of a larger work (which I think would probably include the edits required to make it into a logo), the resulting piece of work also needs to be given the same CC license.
  • You probably can’t use ND for the purposes you’re suggesting.

In no case are you required to ask permission, but for photos marked CC-BY-NC its probably a good idea - that license was the default for a long time and people may not necessarily be aware of the implications.

For newer users the license defaults to full copyrights retained - if anyone is reading this I strongly suggest going to your account settings and setting the photo licenses to whatever you feel comfortable with. Personally I don’t believe I have any right to restrict what others do with the photos I take and release everything to the public domain. I’ve been pleasantly surprised a couple of times already to find my photos being used in random places. Just now I looked and noticed that my photo of Drosera linearis is illustrating the species page on the German Wikipedia.

2 Likes
6

I tried that and it went about how I expected. There aren’t many photos of the species I’m cataloguing. It’s no big deal though. If I really feel the urge, I’ll just contact one of the observers for their permission.

7

On a related note, does anyone know how people get different project layout templates? Most of them look the same, but some, like this one: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/give-the-gift-of-species-data have a totally different layout.

8

That is a “traditional” project, which work entirely differently from the new kind of project. See here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/managing-projects#types

9

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