Attribution = to give credit or attribution to a creative work or idea. See Attribution vs. Citation from the Gettysburg College Digital Humanities Toolkit

NOT CITING OR GIVING ATTRIBUTION TO AN IMAGE SOURCE IS A FORM OF VISUAL PLAGIARISM

It is the ethical and right thing to do to give attribution to creative content you use even if you aren’t told to use a particular style and even if it is in the public domain or under some other type of open license that doesn’t require attribution. Why? Because it keeps the flow of knowledge going and allows people to learn more about the work and the creator. You should also attribute your own work for the same reasons, so people can learn about you as the creator and your work.

How to Give Attribution to Creative Commons Licensed Content and Other Openly Licensed Content

All the Creative Commons licenses have the condition of attribution built in to the terms. This means you must give attribution to all Creative Commons licensed content you use.

Attribution Example for a Creative Commons Image

Green Iguana by Rjcastillo is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

This is a good attribution because it contains:

• Title: “Green Iguana”
• Creator: “Rjcastillo”—with a link to their profile page
• Source: “Green Iguana”—with a link to the original photo on Flickr
• License: “CC BY-ND 3.0″—with a link to the license deed

Giving Your Own Work a Creative Commons License

Here are some things to think about when you are deciding which type of CC license you want to give your work:

Do you want others to use your work commercially or not?

Do you want others to be able to adapt your work and make something new with it?

Do you want others to use the same Creative Commons license you used for your work they are using?

You can use the License Chooser Beta tool  or the “Which Creative Commons License is Right for Me?” interactive tool to help you decide which Creative Commons license is right for you and your work.