Free Dance Clip Art

With the number of dance websites popping up all over the web, the demand for free dance clip art is immense. And it would seem that it is easier than ever to get free dance clip art from anywhere – just right-click on most images on the web, select "save as," and the image is yours for the taking, right?

There are some very big problems with this idea.

The biggest problem is that the images on the web are, for the most part, protected by the copyright laws of the United States (and often other countries as well). This means that the art cannot be used for any purpose other than what the creator (or whoever holds the rights) intended. There doesn't even have to be a "copyright" symbol © next to it – the act of creation itself implies ownership of an image.

The odds of some lawyer from a dance company tracking down a personal website to protest the use of images is, admittedly, quite slim. However, that doesn't make it impossible, and more to the point, it doesn't make it right to steal the image in the first place. If the image is being used to actually promote a commercial site, the odds of legal troubles become a lot greater. The fact is, many dance companies welcome the publicity that images can bring them, and a quick email to the photographer or the company itself will enable you to secure the rights to use the image as long as you give credit (and sometimes a link) to the source.

Many dance choreographers and companies, especially large ones such as Riverdance, even have artwork and banners specifically designed to be used on websites. These are probably the most professionally designed, highest-quality free clip art you could get – designed by the company itself to show the dancers at their absolute best.

The easiest source of clip art available for use is probably already on your computer if you have a word processing program such as Microsoft Word. It contains an extensive and cross-referenced library of clip art free to use on the web, in print materials, or anywhere you'd like. Even better, Microsoft extends the library of clip art onto its web site, enabling more photos, gifs, and even some vector illustrations to be downloaded and seamlessly installed into the application you want to use it with.

The Creative Commons license is a way for artists, photographers, and other content creators to share their artwork without necessarily losing all control of it. The license is more thoroughly explained at their website, but basically it lets the creator dictate the terms under which their work can be used. This may range from non-commercial use to commercial use with attribution to complete freedom to use it anywhere. The security for you is the knowledge that you are using an image completely legally.

When the web was still in its 1.0 form, lots of helpful grass-roots sites showed up to try and share the art and joy of dance with others. Many sites such as the Dance Danza page were created to provide simple graphic images showing ballroom, ballet, country and western, and other forms of dance. The trend grew so prevalent that pages were set up that were just directories to other clip art sites.

The problem with these particular kinds of sites were that they quickly became obsolete – the images often in low-resolution that simply didn't match up to the improving web standards. Worse, because so many people used the images on their sites, the same pictures showed up over and over on fan sites and enthusiasts' blogs, and it tended to take away from the individual expression.

One solution to the problem of replicating the same image, regardless of the source, is to use an image program like Photoshop to alter the image in some way to make it your own. Once an image has been secured as available for use, it is available to be changed, too, and with a little effort you can have a unique and beautiful image of the dance on your site.

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• Category:Other Dance Topics
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