Many iNaturalist users enjoy contributing to scientific research and conservation by recording their observations of species. Once per week, new iNaturalist observations that have been uploaded over the previous seven days are imported into the ALA, where data can be accessed by researchers, decision-makers, and others working in biodiversity and conservation. 

Despite this weekly process, not all iNaturalist records, images and sounds make it across to the ALA. In some cases, iNaturalist observations are prevented from making their way into the ALA due to copyright licence settings in iNaturalist. Many users are unaware that copyright licencing is an important factor that can prevent the ALA from receiving their observations. Here we explain the different licencing options, how to check your licencing, and how to update your licencing settings if needed. 

The importance of licensing settings

Applying All Rights Reserved to all of your content prevents your observations from being ingested by the ALA: they will remain in iNaturalist and be prevented from moving across. All other options, including six different Creative Commons copyright licences and CC0, the public domain dedication tool, will allow your observations to move into the ALA, where they can be easily accessed and used by researchers, land managers, conservationists and other passionate naturalists!

Account creation

When you first sign up to iNaturalist and create a new account, you are presented with the option to allow your photos, sounds, and observations to be used by scientists.

Leaving this box ticked automatically applies a CC BY-NC licence to all of your future observations and the photographs and recordings attached to them. This licence means that other people can use your content without having to ask permission, but only if they credit you as the author and they don’t use your content for commercial purposes. 

Unchecking this box, however, applies no licence to your content, that is, “All Rights Reserved” is applied. In this case, you would retain full copyright over all content, and other people cannot use your content for any purpose without permission. 

If you created your account a while ago and can’t remember if you selected this setting or not, that’s ok. You can still check your current settings and change them if needed.

How do I check and update my licensing settings?

You can check your licencing settings at any time by visiting the Content & Display menu in your iNaturalist profile settings. There are three different boxes here: one for your photographs, one for your sound recordings, and one for your observations themselves.

To change any of your licencing settings:

1. Click the box for the content type you wish to change
   
2. Select the licence you wish to use. You can select from one of eight different options: CC0, one of six Creative Commons licences, or All Rights Reserved
   
   
   
3. If you wish to update all of your existing observations to this new licence type, tick the checkbox underneath that says “Update existing observations with new license choices.” If you only want to apply these changes to your future observations going forward, then do not tick the checkbox(es).
   
   
   
4. Click the Save settings button. Your licence settings are now updated.

Please note that once your licence settings have been updated, any of your existing observations in the ALA can take some time to update because the data from iNaturalist comes to the ALA weekly. Similarly, for records that will be new to the ALA, it can take up to two weeks for them to appear in the ALA.

Can I apply separate licensing to my photographs/recordings and observations?

Yes, absolutely! If, for example, you’re a professional photographer and you sell the photographs you upload to iNaturalist outside of the platform, you can apply All Rights Reserved to your photographs (and sound recordings if you wish), but apply one of the Creative Commons licences to your observations themselves. This will allow you to retain full copyright over your photographs, whilst still allowing your observations to move into the ALA and be used by others, just without the photographs attached.

How to find the licence on a particular iNaturalist record, image or sound

You can also check the licencing applied to individual observations, images or sounds. This can be useful if you are looking for images or sounds to use, and knowing which ones are ok for your particular use case, and finding the user’s name to give attribution.

Checking the licence for an image or sound

1. Click on one of your observations in iNaturalist. For example, this record of Fuchsia Heath from Royal National Park.
2. Click on the first icon along the bottom of the photograph or sound recording. The icon will look like a small circle with C or CC inside it.
3. This will generate a pop-up showing the user’s name, and the copyright licence (or lack thereof) that has been applied. For example, “some rights reserved (CC-BY)”, in this case, a licence of CC BY has been applied to this photograph, which allows it to be shared with the ALA.
   

If no licence has been applied, the popup will display “all rights reserved”. This means that this image will not make it across to the ALA, (even if the observation itself does show on ALA). 

Checking the licence for an observation

Scrolling down the page to the Copyright Info section on the right-hand side shows the licence being applied to the observation itself. In this example, it is also CC BY, shown by use of the CC BY logo, and text “some rights reserved”. This means that this observation will be included in the ALA.

If no license is applied, a © symbol and text all rights reserved” will be used. This means that this observation will not be part of the ALA at all.

Summary

Once per week, new iNaturalist observations that have been uploaded over the previous seven days are imported into the ALA. Whether this content makes it across depends on the licensing settings in iNaturalist.

As an iNaturalist user, you can view and update your licensing settings in your user profile. Different settings can be applied to observations, images and sounds if you prefer.

Applying All Rights Reserved to all of your content prevents your observations from being ingested by the ALA, but all other options, including six different Creative Commons copyright licences and CC0, will allow your observations to move into the ALA.

You can also check the licence settings on an individual observation, image or sound – your own or from other users.

If you require assistance or have any further questions, please reach out to us at [email protected].