How to Give Copyright Credit: Format, Placement, and Examples

To give copyright credit properly, name four things: the title of the work, the author, the source where you found it, and the license it carries. Put that information next to the work so anyone can see the connection. And keep one thing straight before you do any of it: crediting a creator is not the same as having permission to use their work. Attribution handles the ethics of acknowledgment; a license or permission handles the legal right to use. You generally need both.

The Four Elements: Title, Author, Source, License

Creative Commons calls this the TASL formula, and it works for almost anything you’ll need to credit, not just CC-licensed material.¹

Title. The name of the work. If the creator didn’t give it a title, skip this. Title is required under CC licenses version 3.0 and earlier, and optional under 4.0.
Author. The creator, or whoever the licensor designates. Some licensors want credit to go to an organization or pseudonym instead of a personal name. If the work carries a copyright notice (© symbol, year, name), include that.
Source. A link to where you found the work. Use the full original URL, not a shortener, and link to the first-publication location when you can.
License. The specific license that applies. Name it and link to its legal text. “CC BY 4.0” with a hyperlink to the license deed is the standard form.

A complete attribution for a photo reads like this: “Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco” by Timothy Vollmer, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Each element links out: the title to the image page, the author to the photographer’s profile, and the license to the CC BY 4.0 deed.¹

When you share CC BY 4.0 material, the license itself spells out what your credit line must contain: the creator’s identification, any copyright notice, a reference to the license, any disclaimer of warranties, and a link to the original material when reasonably practicable. You must also indicate whether you modified the work and preserve any indication of previous modifications.² The license gives you flexibility in how you present it. A link to a page containing all the required details is acceptable.

Credit Alone Doesn’t Give You the Right to Use the Work

This is the most expensive misunderstanding in the whole subject. Many people assume that naming the creator and linking to the source lets them use any image, song, or block of text they find. It doesn’t. Attribution acknowledges who made something. Permission or a license determines whether you can use it at all.

Under federal copyright law, unauthorized use can trigger statutory damages between $750 and $30,000 per work, even if you credited the creator perfectly. If a court finds the infringement was willful, the ceiling rises to $150,000 per work.³

It also helps to keep plagiarism and infringement separate in your head. Plagiarism is an ethical violation: passing off someone’s work as your own. Infringement is a legal violation: using a work without authorization. You can commit either without the other. Quoting extensively with full citations can still be infringement if you exceed fair use. Using a work you have permission to use, but without crediting the creator, can be plagiarism without being infringement. Proper credit handles the ethics. A license handles the law.⁴

How to Write the Credit for Different Kinds of Work

The four TASL elements stay constant. How you present them shifts with the medium.

Images and Photographs

Place the credit directly below the image:

“Sunrise over the Lake” by Alex Johnson, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Source: [link to original on Flickr]

If you cropped or edited it, add “Cropped from original” or a similar note. CC BY 4.0 requires you to indicate modifications.²

Text and Articles

Identify the author, the piece, and where it was published:

“The Impact of Digital Media” by Sarah Chen, published on MediaStudiesJournal.org. [Link to article]

For direct quotes, use quotation marks or a block quote so the borrowed text is clearly separated from your own words. If the text carries a CC license, add the license name and link the same way you would for an image.

Music and Audio

Include artist, track title, album if applicable, and source:

“Urban Rhythms” by The Sound Collective, from the album City Beats, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: [link to track]

If the artist gave you specific permission rather than a public license, replace the license line with “used with permission” and link to the artist’s official site.

Video

Same pattern: creator, title, platform, license or permission status. Put the credit in the video description or in an on-screen credits section. If you embed the video on your own site, add the credit near the embed.

Software and Open-Source Code

Open-source licenses are stricter about placement than creative licenses. The MIT License requires the original copyright notice and permission notice to be included “in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.”⁵ That means the notice belongs in your source files, not just in a readme.

The Apache License 2.0 goes further. You must preserve any original copyright, patent, trademark, or attribution notices in every licensed file. If the project includes a NOTICE file, its contents must survive in your derivative work. And whenever you modify a file, you must add a statement that changes were made. Developers typically handle that by adding a comment at the top of each modified file noting the date and nature of the changes.

Crediting Work You’ve Modified

When you alter someone’s work instead of sharing it as-is, the credit expands. Most open licenses require you to flag what you changed. Under CC BY 4.0, you must state that you modified the licensed material and keep any indication of previous modifications by others.²

Keep the modification notice brief and specific. Cropped and color-corrected a photograph? Say so: “Cropped and color-adjusted from original.” Translated an article? “Translated from French by [your name].” The Creative Commons wiki suggests appending the modification note directly to the original credit line, for instance: original attribution followed by “/ Cropped from original.”¹

If the work carries a ShareAlike (SA) element, your adaptation has to go out under the same or a compatible license. The credit on your derivative should include both the original creator and your own license designation.

Public Domain and AI-Generated Work

Two cases sit outside the standard rules and cause regular confusion.

Public domain works carry no copyright restrictions and require no legal credit. In the United States, published works from before 1931 are in the public domain as of 2026.⁶ Works can also enter the public domain when creators dedicate them using tools like CC0. Even without a legal duty, crediting the original creator is good practice. A simple line works: “The Night Watch” by Rembrandt van Rijn (Public Domain).

AI-generated content is newer territory. The U.S. Copyright Office holds that copyright protects only material produced by human creativity. When an AI tool determines the expressive elements of its output, that output is not copyrightable. If you register a work containing AI-generated material, you must disclose that and exclude the AI-generated portions from your copyright claim in the “Material Excluded” section of your application.⁷

No universal standard for crediting AI output has settled yet. A reasonable format identifies the tool and your role: “Image generated using [AI tool name], with human-directed prompts and editing by [your name].” When AI-generated elements sit alongside traditionally copyrighted material in the same work, mark which parts are yours and which came from the machine.

Where to Put the Credit

A credit only works if people can see it. Place it as close to the work as possible so the connection is obvious.

Images: directly below as a caption, or in an image credit section on the page. Don’t bury photo credits in a footnote at the end of a long article where readers won’t connect them to the pictures.
Text: inline citations for direct quotes, with footnotes or a bibliography for broader references. Academic and professional writing usually follows a specific citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago); match the convention your audience expects.
Audio and video: in the description box on the hosting platform, in an on-screen credit sequence, or on a dedicated sources page linked from the content.
Software: in source file headers, LICENSE or NOTICE files, and project documentation. Most license violations happen here in practice, because developers copy code snippets without carrying the notice file along.

For digital files, embed the credit information into the metadata when you can. The IPTC Photo Metadata standard and Adobe’s XMP format let you store creator names, copyright notices, and license information inside image files. That metadata travels with the file when it’s downloaded or shared, so the credit is harder to strip.⁸

Writing Your Own Copyright Notice

If you’re the creator and want to make ownership clear on your own work, a copyright notice does the job. It’s not legally required for works published on or after March 1, 1989, but including one makes ownership unmistakable and can limit an infringer’s ability to claim they didn’t know the work was protected.⁹ The standard notice has three parts:

The year of first publication
The name of the copyright owner

For example: © 2026 Jane Rodriguez. When you see this notice on someone else’s work and no open license is indicated, assume “All Rights Reserved.” You need explicit permission from the copyright holder before using the work for anything beyond what fair use allows.⁴

1
Creative Commons. Recommended Practices for Attribution
2
Creative Commons. Legal Code – Attribution 4.0 International
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 504 – Remedies for Infringement: Damages and Profits
4
U.S. Copyright Office. Fair Use FAQ
5
Open Source Initiative. The MIT License
6
Cornell University. Copyright Term and the Public Domain
7
U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright Registration Guidance for Works Containing AI-Generated Materials
8
IPTC. IPTC Photo Metadata User Guide
9
U.S. Copyright Office. Circular 3 – Copyright Notice