UPDATED: A word of caution about pictures

This child is holding a protest sign on March 26, 2010, often used by the Westboro Baptist Church, which was in the news last year as part of a Supreme Court case about whether its members can be restricted from protesting during funerals. This photo — by k763 — is reproduced under a Creative Commons license.

HARTLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. — We'll focus on copyright of images as part of another assignment, but when you aggregate, it's important to realize that just because you can copy a photo doesn't mean it's legal to use it. If you use a copyrighted photo without permission, it'll negatively affect your grade.

I obtained this picture from Flickr, which offers pictures for use with permission in advance under a Creative Commons license.

So, be mindful that you need either permission or a Creative Commons license to include a picture. Video embeds encourage sharing, so that is typically OK.

Another tip: When you're on a website, look for its terms of use. Often, it'll address what the owner claims under copyright, images, graphics, etc. Also, images on government sites typically can be used, such as the one Martin Dow did for his NASA post, but it isn't always the case. (Check out the briefing room at the White House — it's all public). For instance, if someone takes pictures of a festival that get posted on a government website, the photographer, not the government retains copyright. All the photographer did was allow the government to post, not you.

When you do your aggregation, if you have a question about a picture, please ask.

Update note: This post was updated Friday afternoon to give more advice on how to find usable pictures for aggregation.