But wait! It’s possible that the photograph or reproduction of a public domain work might itself be under copyright! Thankfully the EU’s 2019 directive Copyright in the Digital Single Market, specifically Article 14, made it impossible to copyright “faithful reproductions of works in the public domain.” The UK has similar guidelines updated in 2021: “it seems unlikely that what is merely a retouched, digitised image of an older work can be considered as ‘original’”. That’s the general rule anyway, see this DACS factsheet for a list of exceptions. UK Public Domain LawĪn artwork falls in to the public domain 70 years after the death of the artist. As the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 outlines: “You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.” Excellent news for artists. A public domain image is one that is free of known copyright around the world. This collection of websites offering free to use public domain images have been a fantastic resource for my own artwork be it drawing, painting, printmaking or design. It’s not just permissible to use what came before to create what’s next – it’s impossible not to. We arrive on a planet full of history and wonder and other people’s stuff. In his book Steal Like An Artist Austin Kleon asks: “How does an artist look at the world?” and concludes: “First, you figure out what’s worth stealing, then you move on to the next thing.” Original ideas entered the endangered species list 3,000 years ago when King Solomon lamented: “What has been done will be done again there is nothing new under the sun.” “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” A quote often attributed to Picasso turns out to have a suitably complicated history of copying and stealing itself. Our pick of the best online collections of public domain images from the British Museum to NASA.
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