Interactive decision guide
Part of Knowledge & IntelligenceShould This Image Be AI-Generated? — An Ethical Decision Guide
Need it, find it, or generate it? Make a useful, lawful, and environmentally considered choice — with sources behind every outcome.
Search before you generate
Start with work that already exists.
Reuse is often faster, more truthful, and less computationally wasteful than generating a new image. These collections cover open culture, documentary material, photographs, illustrations, vectors, and video. Always check the exact item’s terms.
Openverse
The best first stop: searches Creative Commons and public-domain media across many collections.
Rights check: Open the original item page and verify its exact licence, creator, and attribution requirements.
Open repositoryWikimedia Commons
Real places, people, objects, diagrams, science, history, and current events.
Rights check: Licences vary by file. Follow the credit and ShareAlike requirements shown on the file page.
Museum open accessSmithsonian Open Access
Art, culture, science, history, archival objects, and unusual 2D or 3D collection material.
Rights check: Look for the CC0 mark. Credit is still good practice even when it is not legally required.
Free stockUnsplash
Contemporary editorial-style photography, landscapes, objects, workplaces, and atmosphere.
Rights check: Uses the Unsplash License, not Creative Commons. It does not clear every depicted person, brand, or property.
Free stockPexels
Everyday photography and short video, including people, work, education, and lifestyle scenes.
Rights check: Uses the Pexels License. Check restrictions on endorsement, identifiable people, resale, and trademarks.
Free stockPixabay
Photos, illustrations, vectors, video, audio, and a broad range of generic concepts.
Rights check: Uses the Pixabay Content License. Additional trademark, publicity, privacy, or property rights may still apply.
Creative Commons poolFlickr Creative Commons
Candid photography, communities, events, older web photography, and hard-to-find everyday subjects.
Rights check: Filter by the licence your use requires and preserve title, creator, source, licence, and change notes.
Skip ahead
Already know which case you are in?
Open any determination directly. Each one states what to do, the reasoning behind it, and the primary source — a licence, regulation, professional standard, or research study.
How to read it
A practical sequence, grounded in published rules and evidence.
The map asks the questions in the order a careful reviewer should: whether the image is needed, what it is for, whose rights are attached, whether something suitable already exists, and only then whether generating it is defensible. Click any step to read it; switch to Guide me to answer the questions for a case of your own.
Role before licence
Whether an image documents or illustrates settles more cases than any licence question does. The guide asks it first for that reason.
Primary, not secondary
Every determination cites the licence text, regulator, standards body, or primary research behind it — never an unsourced summary.
Browse it, or be walked through it
The map shows the whole shape at once and lights the route to whatever you select. “Guide me” asks one question at a time and ends in a full determination.
Do not generate by habit
Image generation has a real but highly variable energy cost. The guide avoids a misleading per-image number and uses a durable rule: remove, reuse, or make simply before generating.
Scope. This guide reflects US copyright law and EU transparency rules, the two frameworks most widely applicable to everyday professional work, and was verified against its cited sources in September 2026. Licences and regulations change. It is a structured reading of published rules, not legal advice — where an outcome turns on the particular facts of your case, the determination says so, and that is the point at which to ask someone qualified.