Google has just launched a new feature of Image Search which is aimed at helping users find images that are free to use based on their usage licenses, such as Creative Commons, GNU free documentation and other intellectual property agreement. This feature includes searching for images that are free to use, edit and share. Somehow, this gives artists producing these images and making them available on the web a hand in determining how their images can be used by anyone, if in case they will allow so. Artists can specify these conditions through the Creative Commons licenses which they tag to their images prior to making them available online.
The feature can be enabled through the advanced image search page. Users can select the type of license attached to images that they want to search for.
According to the Official Google Blog, while this maybe a safer way of finding reusable images, users must still be cautious when using them. It is still the user’s responsibility to verify whether the licensing information is still valid or applicable to the images to avoid copyright infringement later on.
