Writing Science: Best Practices for the Images that Accompany Your Writing

When looking for great images to communicate about science, the Internet is a treasure trove. But, if we are not making or using our own images, it is easy to overstep legal and ethical boundaries. This article is adapted from an image use primer series (Merkle 2017a) which aims to help ecologists enhance science communication efforts while avoiding visual plagiarism. As a note, the author is not a lawyer, and no part of this article or series should be construed as legal advice. This article and the series lay out a few fundamental considerations for using your own images. The bulk of the article discusses best practices for using other people's images that are visual intellectual property protected by copyrights. While considerable emphasis is placed on writing to communicate about science, for those with sight, still and moving images are a crucial element of compelling science communication. In fact, we have known since the 1950s that at least 50% of most audience's neural tissue is keyed into visual stimuli (Sells and Fixott 1957). Whether we are drawing inspiration for a figure, looking for an image to include in a presentation, or developing materials for public engagement, visuals are best treated as an integrated part of our work flow. The best-case scenario is creating our own images—if we have the skill, equipment, or funding to commission someone else to do so. If we are not using our own images, chances are we turn to the Internet where accessible images are abundant. However, like most tools, how we use the Internet to source images can have serious implications for outreach, reputation, and efficacy. No matter the use, be it presenting during a laboratory meeting, to a public audience, in a classroom, at a conference, or communicating via websites, news agencies, press offices, and social media, using images ethically and legally is an essential part of the science communication process. Understanding the foundational vocabulary that is used to discuss visual intellectual property can be helpful for determining whether an intended use is ethical and legal, or not. In this best-case scenario, we have all the rights, and we can attribute or not, as we like—although, crediting our own images helps others do so later and models best practices of attributing all images. Ecologist and photographer Jonny Armstrong recommend we “think about images to tell your story earlier in process, don't wait last minute” (Armstrong 2016a). Planning ahead entails, at a minimum, including having everyone in our images sign a photo release, taking photographs at high-enough resolution to reproduce well in print, and developing a list of photographs (“shot list”) we want to capture during field or laboratory work. In particular, developing a shot list that anticipates the images we need will save you surfing the Internet, debating whether to copy or download someone else's image. Armstrong's recommendations include the following: “1. Start with the obvious: a picture/video of your focal critter, habitat, you in the field, doing your work” (Armstrong 2016b). He continues, “2. Think of the visual that would represent your hypothesis/results or depict the phenomenon you are studying” (Armstrong 2016c). Further suggestions build time and expectations for shooting photographs and video into fieldwork protocols and include funds to hire photographers in grant proposals (Armstrong 2016d). For those taking their own photographs, be aware that employers and institutions may have rules governing ownership and reproduction rights for images produced/created on the job. For instance, federal legislation requires that all images produced on the job by federal employees are released to the public domain. For others, review contracts for “work for hire” clauses. See the U.S. Copyright Office (2012) for an overview of work for hire issues. The U.S. Government is a valuable source of public domain images (U.S. Government 2019). Look for federal agency photo databases relevant to a particular research location, species, or discipline. Do not overlook historical archives, including the Library of Congress Flickr account (Library of Congress 2019). These can be excellent sources of images to make more metaphorical and comic points or to contextualize time scales. The Getty Museum and numerous other museums, in the United States and internationally, host massive public domain and creative commons databases of artworks (e.g., illustrations and paintings, photographs, videos, sculptures). A fair number of image creators also release their images into the public domain or offer Creative Commons licenses. Many use platforms such as Wikimedia Commons and Flickr to host these images. See Merkle (2017b) for a detailed overview of these and additional top sources of free images. It may be difficult to discern the reproduction permissions for an image. In these cases, contact the image creator or copyrights holder, and ask for permission to reproduce the image. Tap into the power of Google's Reverse Image Search (2019) function to use the exact image as the search “phrase” itself. An overview of this and other tools is available in Merkle (2017c). Often, the platform where an image is posted is not the platform used by (or even sanctioned by) the original creator. If it is not clear who owns or created the image, keep digging. Science communication specialist Kirk Englehardt states it plainly: “When in doubt, ask who owns the picture. Contact the owner of the site where you found it, or the author of the post” (Englehardt 2016). When contacting the image creator, be prepared to articulate exactly how and why the image will be reproduced. The U.S. Copyright Office (2013), Stanford University Libraries (Stim 2014), and Merkle (2017c) provide resources which outline the factors we need to consider in advance of articulating an intended or desired use. Ultimately, if an image is widely reproduced and the original creator/use is unclear, confirming permission to reproduce the image may not be possible. In such cases, be prepared to use a different image. While many image creators will happily share their work without payment, others (especially those for whom image creation is a profession and a source of livelihood) may not. Their asking for a fee is appropriate and reasonable, not unlike other highly skilled professionals and artisans (e.g., architect, electrician, and scientist). Of course, it is our choice, when an image creator asks for a fee, to use another image instead. When using images produced by a professional image creator, keep in mind that the reasonable expectation of compensation applies equally to existing work and original, commissioned work. See the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property's white paper “Copyright Principles and Priorities to Foster a Creative Digital Marketplace” for details (Aistars et al. 2016). While collaboration has a particular connotation in ecology, many professional image creators cannot afford to “collaborate” if that means they expect them to do their work for free. In particular, self-employed image creators usually do not have a baseline salary coming in from other sources. Image creators appreciate consideration of the amount of time and expertise required to produce images compelling enough that we want to use them. When reaching out to a photographer, illustrator, or other type of image creator, have a discussion up front about their fees, and be open about the budget for the work. For advice on how to prepare for such a discussion, see Merkle (2017d, e, f). A first step can be to approach an artist we know and whose is in the style suits our vision for communicating a particular concept or result. As science illustrator Jen Burgess (2016) notes, commissioning images can be feasible even on a tight budget. Rather than asking for a break right at the outset, though, let the image creator offer a discount or pro bono services. They may do so if it is within their budget or operating procedures. See entomologist and photographer Alex Wild's (2012) take on the point for an insightful look into the expertise, skill, time, and equipment involved in creating an image. Just as Web of Science does not write the peer-reviewed literature we cite, search engines and “the Internet” do not (or rarely do) take photographs or create illustrations and videos (Wild 2013). Similarly, just because an image is online does not mean it is free for the taking. Quite the contrary; many images are online because their creators want people to see them, not steal them. Attribution as “photo by Google” or “photo from Wikipedia” is not sufficient, accurate, or legal. Doing so is the equivalent of providing a citation credit to bioRxiv or PubMed, rather than crediting the study's authors and the journal where they published. Not surprisingly, even Nature is pondering the difference between public accessibility and reproduction rights (Oxenham 2016). Top resources for crediting public domain and creative commons images include Wild (2013) and Creative Commons (2018). Even educational and conference-related uses are subject to, and constrained by, U.S. copyright laws and legal precedents. The U.S. Copyright Office (2018) notes: “There is no formula to ensure that a predetermined percentage or amount of a work—or specific number of words, lines, pages, copies—may be used without permission”. U.S. Copyright Office (2014) Circular 21 deals with fair use in educational/library settings, while section 107 of Circular 92 (a.k.a, Title 17, the 2016 edition of the entire copyright law text) includes sections on general fair use outside educational settings (U.S. Copyright Office 2016). Furthermore, the Consortium of College and University Media Centers (1995) has distributed a draft set of recommendations regarding “Fair Use Guidelines in Educational Multimedia”. These are not legal guidelines, but rather best-practice recommendations. Of particular note is a clause on page 4 regarding the difference between reproductions for use within a classroom setting versus reproduction that has possibility of being more broadly disseminated: “Educators and students are advised to note that if there is a possibility that their own educational multimedia program incorporating copyrighted works under fair use could later result in either a widely disseminated or a commercial product, it is strongly recommended that they take steps to obtain permissions during the development process for all copyrighted portions rather than waiting until after completion of the program” (Consortium 1995). These are proposed guidelines that were not formalized, ratified, or in any way codified into law. However, they do suggest that reproducing copyrighted images for conferences and other types of non-commercial educational and scholarly presentations is what some institutions (not necessarily image creators) might consider fair use. Meanwhile, a related Conference on Fair Use report (Lehman 1998) addressed then-current common behavior regarding image reproduction in presentations. However, it still did not exempt those wishing to reproduce copyrighted images from the ethical considerations (requesting approval, providing attribution, paying, etc.) described above. Sections of the CONFU report make related recommendations which include only making fair use reproductions available within an institution, protecting them via passwords on internal networks, and a range of related precautions for ensuring the presentation files and slides which include copyrighted images are not deliberately or inadvertently published online. Stephen B. Heard, Annaliese Hettinger, and Skylar Bayer provided insightful comments on earlier drafts. Paige Jarreau, Glendon Mellow, Kirk Englehardt, Jonny Armstrong, Meghan Duffy, and others whose contributions to an initial Twitter conversation inspired and informed this article.