Can anyone provide the policy on the use of commercial licensed military pictures on websites?

Hi COL Mikel J. Burroughs. I'm not sure about NPOs in particular, but I'd assume that copyright is copyright across the board. That said, if it's commercially licensed, there's a good chance you'd have to pay for that license. The best place to find military images that are free for public use would be dvidshub.net . Hope that helps!

COL Mikel J. Burroughs The Marine Corps wrote Marine Corps Order 5720.77, the Public Affairs Manual, which you can find here: http://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/MCO%205720.77.pdf

Each Service should have their own version.

You're free to use the imagery as long as it's taken by someone as a part of their official duty (COMCAM or PAO). Under that clause, the photographs are considered public domain and are not protected by copyright laws.

I highly reccomend going through https://dvidshub.net to get your photographs.

Having trouble tagging indivudals that I'd like to get some input from here on this question, so I'm going to tag you here in a response and just click the link to provide some answers - thanks


CAPT Michael MoranSFC Timothy DingmanSSgt Cheryl BucklerLCpl Kim KroegerSFC Randy HensleySPC Jeannette PelayoSSgt Jimmy JacksonCCMSgt Ed Bonfrancesco III1LT David D. MathiesCPT Carl DaschkeSGT Greg GoldCW3 (Join to see)SSG John Gibson

From what I know there's fair use, creative commons, and stricter/paid copyright licenses.

When in doubt, caption a link back to the original source or simply create original content.

https://creativecommons.org/
https://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright

Unsure of the policy, but in general you can pull images off of Google that are filtered for "commercial reuse". If these military images in question are on Google, try seeing how they are classified.

That being said Sir, any images at any point, no matter the classification, can be reclassified by the owner of that image. Even if classified on Google for reuse, that owner could in theory contact you for compensation (unlikely, but possible).

Mike, any image captured by DoD photographers, cleared and released by the PA people, is in the public domain and can be used by anybody who downloads it from DVIDS, used to be JCCC.

There is also about 200 hours of copyright material on youtube that is worth the sitdown, also as a side note of utility you can use chrome and right click on an image to reverse image search it. And just a tip, if the photo has a watermark do not remove it, there are some artists and photographers who make more off of copyright suits than they do their own work.

But just to give you a somewhat sane intro to the wonders of copyright

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lla9iCgDbHQ

As long as it's not copyrighted, or displays the military in an undesirable/unfavorable light, and certainly not for profit, there should not be a problem using these pics, for some are awesome. Some folks/civilians have had no military service or background would love to see some of these photos. It could also be beneficial to the military recruiting corps to attract more competent and qualified recruits, if some people saw what we actually do, and know that we are not just waxing up our experiences, but we actually lived some part of them.

COL Mikel J. Burroughs Interesting discussion. How about official photos of senior officers and senior enlisted which were obviously taken for their official bio or other command released event being used extensively on RP and LinkedIn