images on the web - public domain (was: serial comma cartoon)

["Monique Semp" <monique -dot- semp -at- earthlink -dot- net>]

> Have you tried doing a Google images search?

First:
* The practical link, to a huge list of public domain image resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources.

Next:
* The discussion:

Yes, but I am quite certain that the majority of images that appear there would not be permissible to include in ones own for-pay work, which this presentation is. Yes, many are seemingly without copyright, but I’m absolutely certain that it’s often omitted, both deliberately and inadvertently.

Uh, oh. Now I’m morphing my own thread into a new, BIG, QUESTION: how can we tell, for the many images on the web that do not explicitly include a copyright symbol or attribution, whether we can include it in our work (with attribution) or not? And if yes, what do we do when it’s really impossible to tell who the creator is?

I was under the impression that “public domain” meant that either an image’s/item’s copyright had expired or that the image/item was specifically identified under some sort of public domain license, as is done for open source software (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_license). And if I’m reading the “Public domain” Wikipedia article correctly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain), that’s largely what it’s saying. But... there is no comparable public domain license; something can be “released into the public domain” basically just by the copyright holder saying so (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Granting_work_into_the_public_domain).

It would sure be nice to fully understand these intricacies!
-Monique




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