Copyright & Image Licensing
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Photographs on FLYPEDIA come from many different sources and are subject to many different licences. This page explains how they are handled, how to check the terms of any individual image, and how to tell us if something is wrong.
FLYPEDIA does not own most of these photographs
The great majority of photographs on this site were taken by other people. They are published here under the terms of the licence each one carries, or because the image is in the public domain, or, in a small number of identified cases, while permission is still being sought.
Appearing on FLYPEDIA does not make an image free to reuse, and FLYPEDIA does not claim ownership of material simply because it is displayed here. There is no blanket statement on this site that its images are free to use, because that would not be true.
Before reusing any image from this site, check that specific image's credit and licence and comply with its terms. The licence travels with the photograph, not with this website.
How each image is credited
Every photograph carries the attribution information recorded for it. On an entry page this sits behind the information marker on the image itself; the Photography Credits page lists them together.
Where the information is available, the record includes:
- the photographer or rights holder as named by the source
- the source the file was obtained from
- the licence the file is published under
- a link to the original file, so you can verify the terms at first hand
Attribution is taken from the file's own metadata at its source rather than reconstructed by hand, so that a credit cannot quietly drift away from the image it belongs to.
Licences in use
Images on FLYPEDIA are published under a range of terms, including public domain and public domain dedications, and various Creative Commons licences (among them CC0, CC BY and CC BY-SA at several versions) as well as older free documentation licences.
These are not interchangeable. A share-alike licence imposes obligations an attribution-only licence does not, and a public domain mark is not a licence at all. The terms that apply to a given photograph are the ones recorded against that photograph.
Images used without a free licence
A small number of images (principally company marks and logos, where no freely licensed version exists) are published while permission has not been obtained. These are not presented as freely licensed. They are recorded as all rights reserved with clearance pending, naming the rights holder where it is known.
They are used for identification and description of the subject of an entry, at low resolution and without implying endorsement or affiliation. Where a rights holder would prefer such an image not to appear, it will be removed on request; see below.
This is disclosed rather than buried because the alternative, recording a free licence against a file that does not have one, would be a false statement about someone else's property.
Original FLYPEDIA material
Article text, translations, editorial structure, interface design and original graphics created for FLYPEDIA are the project's own and are addressed in the Terms of Use. Where a diagram or plate has been prepared by the project from a source document, that derivation is recorded in the image's credit.
Reporting an attribution or copyright problem
If you believe an image is wrongly credited, published under the wrong licence, or used without appropriate authorisation, please report it. This applies equally to a missing photographer credit and to a work you own appearing here without permission.
A report is most useful if it identifies the page and the image, states what you believe is wrong, and, where you are the rights holder or acting for one, gives a basis for that, such as a link to the original publication.
Reports are reviewed. Where a claim is well-founded, the image is re-credited, its licence corrected, or the image removed, as the situation requires. Content is not removed automatically on an unsupported assertion, and a genuine claim is not resisted for the sake of it.
If we got a credit wrong, tell us. We would far rather fix a caption than conduct a courtroom reenactment.
Where to send a report: randgard45@gmail.com
Uncertain cases
Where the licensing status or authorship of an image cannot be established with confidence, it is flagged for review rather than assigned a licence that looks plausible. An image whose status cannot be resolved is not published.