Terms of use.

Last updated 16 July 2026

Arkivism is a free index of public-domain and CC0 visual media. Using it means you accept these terms — they're short, and written to be read.

The works

Every work indexed here is published by its holding institution as CC0 or public domain. The works themselves are free for any use, including commercial use, with no permission needed from us or (per their own licences) the institutions.

Two honest caveats, because they're yours to carry, not ours to wave away:

• Metadata can be wrong. Titles, dates, makers and rights labels come from the source institutions and from automated processing. We surface each item's licence and link to the original record, but we can't guarantee any of it — verify at the source for anything that matters.
• Public domain isn't a permission slip for everything in the picture. A public-domain photograph can still show a living person, a trademark, or a design with its own rights. How you use an image is your responsibility.

The service

Search is free and needs no account. A free account adds boards and follows. We serve reduced previews and cached copies of the institutions' own open-access files; the collections remain theirs, credited on the Sources page.

The service is provided as-is, without warranty of any kind. It may change, pause, or have gaps — it's an independent project, run with care but without a legal department. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we accept no liability for losses arising from your use of the service or of any indexed work.

Fair use of the service itself

Rate limits exist so the archive stays fast for people. Don't work around them, don't hammer the API, and don't misrepresent automated traffic as human. Building something real on top of Arkivism? Lovely — write to [email protected] and we'll find you a proper lane. We may suspend accounts or addresses that abuse the service.

Takedowns and corrections

If you believe something is indexed in error — a rights problem, a mislabelled work, content that shouldn't be here — tell us via [email protected] or the in-app feedback form. A person reviews every report, and genuine problems come down fast.

The boring-but-necessary

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. If a part of them turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still stands. We may update these terms; material changes will be noted on this page with a new date.