Is this image copyrighted?

How to check if an image is copyrighted

1. Run a reverse image search. Drop the image in the box above to see whether it's on a paid stock site, a free-license source or many other pages.
2. Open the best match. A stock listing, a Wikimedia Commons file page or a news caption usually names the owner and the terms. How to find the original source covers this in detail.
3. Read the file's metadata. Many photos carry creator and copyright fields inside the file: look under Properties, then Details, on Windows, or Tools, then Show Inspector, in Preview on a Mac. Empty fields prove nothing, because websites often strip them.
4. Search the US Copyright Office's public records. You search by title or owner, not by picture, so this works once you know who made the image. No registration doesn't mean no copyright.
5. Check its age and origin. A very old image or a US government photo may be in the public domain (see the list below).
6. Still no owner or license? Treat it as protected and use a different image.

Assume it's protected, then find the owner

In the US, copyright covers an original image from the moment it's fixed, for example saved as a file (17 U.S.C. §102). Since 1989 a work doesn't need a © notice, and it doesn't need to be registered to be protected (Copyright Office Circular 1). So "there's no copyright mark on it" tells you nothing.

Finding the owner is what turns the question into an answer. If the image is on Getty Images, Shutterstock or Alamy, the agency sells licenses for it. If it's on Wikimedia Commons or Unsplash, the file page shows its license. If it's a news photo on dozens of sites, an agency usually owns it.

What the four verdicts tell you

• Paid stock found: it's on a stock agency's site. It needs a license unless you bought one, or unless it's a public-domain photo the agency also sells (agencies do sell copies of old archive photos).
• Free source found: it's on a free-license source such as Wikimedia Commons, Unsplash or Pexels. Free licenses still have terms, like crediting the author: read that page.
• Widely published, owner unknown: it's on 10 or more sites and nobody is named as the owner. News and agency photos look like this. Treat it as licensed.
• Not found, or on a few sites: we didn't find an owner. That's not permission: if you didn't make it, ask whoever did.

Images that are usually free to use

• Works published in the US before 1931: their US copyright has expired (as of 2026; each January another year joins). Circular 15A explains the terms.
• Works made by US federal employees as part of their job, such as NASA and Library of Congress staff photos (17 U.S.C. §105). Contractors' work and other governments' work can be different.
• Images whose owners released them under CC0 or a public-domain mark.
• Images under a Creative Commons license, if you follow its terms (credit, share-alike, non-commercial where it says so).

Need one now? Find Any Photo searches public-domain photos from the Library of Congress, NASA and other US archives: findanyphoto.com.

Things that don't make an image free to use

• It came up in Google Images, or it's "all over the internet".
• It has no © mark, watermark or photographer's name on it.
• You credit the photographer or link back to the source. Credit isn't permission.
• You edited, cropped or filtered it.
• Your site is small or non-commercial. Fair use (17 U.S.C. §107) is a defense decided case by case on four factors, not a rule you can count on in advance. The Copyright Office keeps a fair use index of court decisions.