Google's Image Search Adds Usage Rights Filtering

Want to find a reusable photo for a blog or web site post, but concerned (naturally) about possible licensing issues? While there are already some ways to search for such images and content, Google remains the first search engine of choice for most folks. On Thursday they added functionality to Image Search to help in these sorts of queries.

To use the feature, you go into Image Search Advanced Preferences, scroll down to usage rights and select the search you want (click above image to enlarge). The selections are:

• not filtered by license
• labeled for reuse
• labeled for commercial reuse
• labeled for reuse with modification
• labeled for commercial reuse with modification

Here's what Google said in their blog post announcing the change:

Today, we're launching a feature on Image Search to help you find images that you can use for free, while respecting the wishes of artists and creators. This feature allows you to restrict your Image Search results to images that have been tagged with licenses like Creative Commons, making it easier to discover images from across the web that you can share, use and even modify. Your search will also include works that have been tagged with other licenses, like GNU Free Documentation license, or are in the public domain.

Of course, there's a caveat. It is still up to the end user to ensure that the licensing information is accurate. As Google says:

We can help you take the first step towards finding these images, but we can't guarantee that the content we linked to is actually in the public domain, or available under the license.