# Rights and licences Who owns images, music, fonts and code, and what you are allowed to do with them. For your portfolio, your internship and your first invoice. Multimedia & Creative Technology · 0.0 General · Self-study · version 1.0.1 · 2026-09-30 Tags: licensing Slides: Speaker notes: ## Agenda 1. The starting point: Everything is protected, unless 2. Creative Commons: Four building blocks 3. Where material comes from: Images, fonts, music 4. Code: MIT, GPL and no licence 5. AI: What is not settled yet 6. In your portfolio: What you may show ## Self-study: How to work through this *30 minutes, On your own* Count on half an hour. This deck is not legal advice, it is the knowledge you need to ask the right question. 1. The drill with six cases sits after the Creative Commons part 2. Keep your last project at hand, you go through it at the end 3. In doubt about real client work: ask your client or a lawyer ## 1. The starting point *Whatever somebody makes belongs to the person who made it. Without anything having to be added.* **Protected from the first pen stroke.** You register nothing and no copyright sign has to be there. From the moment something exists in a form you can see or hear, it is protected. ### What falls under it *Much more than photos alone.* - **Images and video**: Photos, illustrations, renders, screenshots of somebody else's work, a frame from a film. - **Text and music**: Articles, lyrics, a track, a jingle, a voice in a recording. - **Design**: Logos, fonts, icons, an interface, a poster, a 3d model. - **Code**: Every file you write, licence file or not. - **Not protected**: Ideas, facts, a style, a colour combination, the function of an app. - **Something else entirely**: Brand names and logos sit under trademark law on top of that. ### For how long *Longer than you think, and the clock runs on the maker, not the work.* - In Europe: up to seventy years after the maker dies - After that it falls into the public domain and anybody can do anything with it - So a photo from 1960 can still be fully protected - A scan or a photo of an old painting can carry a new right of its own > [!NOTE] > Public domain is not the same as free to find. The first is a legal status, the second says nothing. ### What people believe *Four convictions that come back every year, and why they do not hold.* #### The myth - "It was on Google, so it is free" - "It is for school, so it is allowed" - "I credit the source, so it is fine" - "I changed it, so it is mine" #### How it works - Google is a search engine, not a source and not a licence - Your classroom has a narrow exception, your public portfolio does not - Crediting is a condition, not permission - An edit of protected work stays tied to the original ### People in your images *Next to the copyright of the photographer sits the right of the person in the frame.* - Anybody recognisable in an image has to agree to it being published - At an event or in a crowd that is looser, for a deliberate portrait it is not - For commercial use you always need that permission - For minors the parents give it > [!WARNING] > That includes your own project photos with classmates in them, and the customers who show up in your internship video. ## 2. Creative Commons *Makers saying up front what you may do with their work.* ### Four building blocks *Every CC licence is a combination of these four, and the letters are in the name.* | Code | Means | In practice | | --- | --- | --- | | `BY` | Attribution | You credit the maker, the source and the licence | | `SA` | Share alike | What you make with it carries the same licence | | `NC` | Non commercial | Not in client work, nothing with ads or sales | | `ND` | No derivatives | Use it unchanged, so no cropping or recolouring | > [!TIP] > `CC0` is the freest of them all: the maker waives their rights. `CC BY` is the most common one, with attribution only. ### What you may do with which *The same photo, four licences, four different answers.* | Licence | In a school project | In client work | Editing | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `CC0` | Yes | Yes | Yes | | `CC BY` | Yes, with credit | Yes, with credit | Yes | | `CC BY-SA` | Yes, with credit | Yes, but your work becomes BY-SA too | Yes | | `CC BY-NC` | Yes, with credit | No | Yes | | `CC BY-ND` | Yes, with credit | Yes, with credit | No | ### How you credit a source *Four parts: title, author, source and licence. That order is worth remembering as TASL.* ```md Photo: "City birds" by Lien Peeters, via Flickr, CC BY 4.0

City birds by Lien Peeters, licence CC BY 4.0

``` > [!NOTE] > Put your credits on the page itself or on a credits page you link to from the image. Hiding them in a file name does not count. ### Drill: is this allowed *Six cases you meet this year, from portfolio to internship.* **1. You find the perfect photo for your portfolio through Google Images.** - Use it with the source credited - **Find out which licence it carries first** ✓ - Use it, but crop it Google only shows where an image sits. Click through to the site, find the licence or the photographer. No licence found means: do not use it. **2. A photo from Unsplash in the paid website you are building for a client.** - **Fine, the licence allows commercial use** ✓ - Not allowed, it is a free site - Only with an invoice from Unsplash The Unsplash licence allows commercial use, credit is optional but decent. Do watch for recognisable people and brands in the frame, those carry separate rules. **3. An icon set under CC BY-NC, in the app you are building for a company.** - Fine, with attribution - **Not allowed, NC rules out commercial use** ✓ - Fine if the company is a non profit NC means non commercial. Work somebody pays for falls outside it. Find a set under MIT, ISC or CC BY, or buy a licence. **4. A font you found for free on a download site, in a logo for a client.** - Fine, it was free online - **Check the licence from the foundry first** ✓ - Fine, a logo is just an image Download sites often redistribute fonts they have no right to. And even a genuinely free font has terms: sometimes fine for print, not for an app or a logo. **5. Music from your Spotify playlist under the showreel you put on YouTube.** - Fine, you credit the artist - **Not allowed, you have no licence for that track** ✓ - Fine if you set the video to private A subscription gives you listening rights, not usage rights. YouTube recognises the track automatically and claims or blocks your video. Use music licensed for video. **6. An npm package under GPL-3.0 in a closed project for a client.** - No problem, it is open source - **Careful: GPL asks you to release your own code too** ✓ - Only with attribution GPL is copyleft: if you distribute software built on it, your source has to be available under the same licence. For closed client work pick a package under MIT or Apache. ## 3. Where material comes from *Four categories, each with their own small print.* ### Images *From free to expensive, and the difference is in what you may do with it.* | Source | What you get | Watch out | | --- | --- | --- | | Unsplash, Pexels | Free, commercial included | Everybody uses the same images, and people in frame stay a concern | | Paid stock | A licence per image or a subscription | Read whether it is editorial or commercial use | | Wikimedia Commons | Often CC, sometimes public domain | The licence sits per file, so it differs every time | | Shooting it yourself | Everything | As long as no protected work or recognisable person is in it | ### Fonts *The most underestimated trap in this whole field.* - A desktop licence lets you make a poster, not a website - A web licence often counts visitors per month - A font in an app or a game usually needs yet another licence - Google Fonts is free for everything, commercial included, which saves the discussion > [!WARNING] > A foundry that spots its font unpaid in a campaign does not send a mail, it sends an invoice. That is the most common bill in this sector. ### Music, sound and icons *Three corners where students most often take something they should not.* - **Music**: Epidemic Sound, Artlist or Uppbeat deliver music licensed for video. Freesound has free sound under CC, check it per file. - **Icons**: Lucide and Heroicons are free to use. Font Awesome Free needs attribution, The Noun Project wants credit or a subscription. - **Video and 3d**: Pexels and Mixkit for clips, Poly Haven for HDRIs and models. Sketchfab differs per model, so check every download. ## 4. Code *Software has an owner too, and without a licence nobody may do anything.* ### Three kinds of licences *The difference is what has to happen to whatever you build on top.* | Kind | Examples | What it asks of you | | --- | --- | --- | | Permissive | MIT, ISC, Apache 2.0, BSD | Keep the licence text and the name of the maker, nothing more | | Copyleft | GPL, LGPL, AGPL | What you distribute on top of it carries the same licence | | No licence | A repo without a LICENSE | All rights reserved: reading is fine, using is not | > [!NOTE] > That last one surprises most people. Public on GitHub only means you may read it, not that you may use it. ### What a dependency brings along *Every package you install carries its own terms.* ```bash # which licences sit in your project npx license-checker --summary MIT: 812 ISC: 96 Apache-2.0: 41 BSD-3-Clause: 18 GPL-3.0: 1 <-- this one deserves a look ``` > [!TIP] > For school it rarely matters. The moment you deliver to a client or work inside a company, this is the first thing their legal side checks. ### Your own repo *If you want others to use your code, you have to say so.* 1. **Pick a licence**: MIT if you want everybody to do anything with it. GPL if you want improvements to stay open. No licence means nobody may do anything. 2. **Put it in the repo**: A LICENSE file in the root, plus a line in your README. GitHub then shows the licence at the top of your repo. 3. **Stay consistent**: Code from others that you reuse keeps their licence and their credit. > [!NOTE] > [choosealicense.com](https://choosealicense.com/) asks three questions and hands you the text to copy. That is literally two minutes of work. ### A repo on GitHub has no LICENSE file. What may you do with it? - A. Read it, nothing more - B. Anything, it is public - C. Use it as long as you credit the source - D. Use it for school, not commercially **Answer:** A. Read it, nothing more Without a licence, ordinary copyright applies: all rights with the maker. In practice you simply ask in an issue. Most people then add a licence after all. ## 5. AI *The part where the rules are still moving, so tread carefully.* ### What is clear today - Images made entirely by a model usually get no copyright in the EU and the US - So you can use it, but nobody can protect it, you included - What you may do with the output sits in the terms of the tool, not in the law - Models can reproduce protected material, and that stays your responsibility > [!WARNING] > **Clients ask about it** > > More and more clients want to know whether AI was involved. Say it up front, afterwards it turns into an argument. ### Two different questions *Whether you may use the tool, and whether you may publish the result. Those are not the same.* #### The tool - Do the terms allow commercial use? - Does your input stay private or does it feed training? - May you sell the output or only use it internally? - Does that hold for the free plan too? #### The result - Does it look too much like existing work or somebody's style? - Is there a logo, a brand or a face in it? - Is it for school or for a client? - Can you explain how it came about? ### Code from an assistant *The same story, with an extra risk you cannot see.* - Suggestions can contain literal pieces from existing repos - Those pieces carry a licence, even when it does not come along - GitHub has a filter for public code, and it is not always on - In a company their rules apply, not your habits > [!NOTE] > More about that sits in the deck about AI as a student. Here it is only about who owns what comes out. ## 6. In your portfolio *Showing your work is your calling card. Do it without buying trouble.* ### What you may show *School work almost always, client work almost never without asking.* | Kind of work | Show it | Condition | | --- | --- | --- | | A school assignment | Yes | Name the course and the year, and that it was an exercise | | Group work | Yes | Say what your part was, which is fairer to yourself too | | Internship or client work | Ask | Sometimes it sits under an NDA or has not launched yet | | A concept for an existing brand | Yes, with a note | Say it was not commissioned, otherwise it reads as real | ### Keep your sources *One file in your repo saying where everything came from. Your future self will thank you.* ```md # Credits ## Images - hero.webp: photo by Lien Peeters, Unsplash, Unsplash License - map.svg: own work ## Fonts - Inter, SIL Open Font License, through Google Fonts ## Music - intro.mp3: "Nightdrive" through Uppbeat, licence UB-2026-0412 ``` > [!TIP] > Fill this in while you work. Reconstructing afterwards where that one photo came from rarely works out. ### Cheat sheet *Six questions before you use somebody else's work.* - **Who made it**: Without a maker and a licence you have nothing. Google is not a source. - **Which licence**: Read it, including the two lines you would rather skip. - **Commercial**: Client work rules out NC. School is not the same as an invoice. - **Editing**: ND means unchanged. SA means your work goes open along with it. - **Crediting**: Title, author, source, licence. Visible on the page. - **Keeping track**: A credits file in your repo, filled in while you work. ### Task: Audit your own project *25 minutes, On your own* Take the project that is online now or the one you show most often. 1. List every image, font, icon and sound clip that is not yours 2. Find the licence for each one and write it down 3. Replace anything whose licence you cannot find back 4. Write a credits.md and link to it from your page 5. Add a LICENSE to your own repo ### Further *Four places that hold the real answer.* - **[creativecommons.org](https://creativecommons.org/cc-licenses/)**: The licences in plain language, with a chooser. - **[choosealicense.com](https://choosealicense.com)**: Three questions and you have the right licence for your own repo. - **[tldrlegal.com](https://www.tldrlegal.com)**: Software licences summarised into can, must and cannot. - **[economie.fgov.be](https://economie.fgov.be/en/themes/intellectual-property/intellectual-property-rights/copyright-and-related-rights/copyright)**: Belgian copyright, straight from the source. ## Glossary - **Copyright**: The right of the maker to what they made, from the moment it exists in a form you can see or hear. Nothing to register, no copyright sign needed. Ideas, facts, a style or a colour combination fall outside it. (slide 4) - **Trademark law**: Protection of brand names and logos, on top of copyright. (slide 6) - **Public domain**: Work whose copyright has run out, in Europe seventy years after the maker dies. Anybody can do anything with it. Free to find is something else. (slide 7) - **Image rights**: Anybody recognisable in an image has to agree before it is published, and always for commercial use. For minors the parents give that permission. (slide 9) - **Creative Commons**: Licences a maker uses to say up front what you may do with their work. Every CC licence is a combination of BY, SA, NC and ND. (slide 11) - **BY**: Attribution. You credit the maker, the source and the licence. CC BY, with only this condition, is the most common CC licence. (slide 11) - **SA**: Share alike. What you make with the work carries the same licence. (slide 11) - **NC**: Non commercial. Not in client work, and not in anything with ads or sales. (slide 11) - **ND**: No derivatives. You use the work unchanged, so no cropping or recolouring either. (slide 11) - **CC0**: The freest CC licence: the maker waives their rights. You may do anything, commercial and modified included. (slide 11) - **TASL**: Title, Author, Source, License: the four parts of a credit. Visible on the page, not hidden in a file name. (slide 13) - **Font licence**: A font has a licence per use: a desktop licence for a poster, a web licence (often per number of visitors) for a site, and yet another for an app or a game. Google Fonts is free for everything. (slide 17) - **Permissive licence**: An open source licence like MIT, ISC, Apache 2.0 or BSD. You may do almost anything, as long as you keep the licence text and the name of the maker. (slide 20) - **Copyleft**: Licences like GPL, LGPL and AGPL: distribute software built on it and it carries the same licence, with the source available. Watch out in closed client work. (slide 20) - **LICENSE**: The file in the root of a repo with the licence of the code. Without a licence, all rights are reserved, so reading is fine and using is not. (slide 22) - **Dependency**: A package your project builds on. It brings its own licence along, and npx license-checker --summary shows which ones are in your project. (slide 21) - **AI output**: Images made entirely by a model usually get no copyright in the EU and the US, so nobody can protect them. What you may do with them sits in the terms of the tool. (slide 25) - **NDA**: A non-disclosure agreement. Internship or client work that falls under one stays out of your portfolio until you have asked. (slide 29) - **Credits file**: A file in your repo (credits.md) that says for every image, font, icon and sound where it comes from and under which licence. Fill it in while you work. (slide 30) ## Links and sources ### In the deck - [choosealicense.com](https://choosealicense.com/) (slide 22, slide 33) - [creativecommons.org](https://creativecommons.org/cc-licenses/) (slide 33) - [tldrlegal.com](https://www.tldrlegal.com) (slide 33) - [economie.fgov.be](https://economie.fgov.be/en/themes/intellectual-property/intellectual-property-rights/copyright-and-related-rights/copyright) (slide 33)