Image Licensing Policy
Last updated: 12 November 2026
Every portrait on Top Personalities is used lawfully, with its licence checked file by file and its creator credited. We never use scraped photos — if we cannot license a portrait freely, we publish without one.
Where our images come from
Our primary source is Wikimedia Commons, the freely licensed media library behind Wikipedia. We also use other freely licensed sources where their terms clearly allow it — for example, "Free to Use and Reuse" sets from the Library of Congress, and CC0 items from Smithsonian Open Access. Images from official press kits are used only when their terms expressly allow commercial use.
Which licences we accept
We accept only public domain, CC0, CC BY and CC BY-SA images. Every file is checked individually before use — a licence that applies to one file does not automatically apply to another, even from the same source. We do not accept CC BY-NC (non-commercial) or CC BY-ND (no-derivatives) licences: we accept only licences permitting commercial reuse, so the images remain usable if the site is ever monetised. The same rule excludes most images from the National Portrait Gallery in London, whose free licences are non-commercial only.
Public domain status must hold in both the United States and the source country. "Free to view" is not the same as free to use, and a credit line alone does not make an unlicensed image lawful.
Attribution (TASL)
Every image on the site carries full TASL attribution: Title, Author, Source and Licence — with a link to the licence and a note of any changes we made, such as cropping or resizing. The attribution appears with the image on the profile page. Portrait files are resized and converted for the web, and any crop is noted in the attribution.
What we never use
We never use images downloaded from Google Images, social media or other websites, because a download grants no rights. We never use watermarked news-agency photographs, such as Getty, AP or Reuters images. We never use a "temporary" unlicensed image while waiting for a licensed one. And we do not rely on fair use for portraits on a public website — fair use is not a reliable defence for that use.
When no portrait can be licensed
Where no freely licensed portrait of a person exists, the profile is published with a typographic monogram card — the person's initials on a navy background with a gold ring — instead of a photograph. This is a deliberate choice, not a placeholder: a profile with a monogram card is complete, and the card is replaced only if a freely licensed portrait becomes available and passes the per-file licence check.
Reporting a licensing concern
If you believe an image on this site is used incorrectly — the wrong licence, missing attribution, or a photograph that is not in fact freely licensed — please email [email protected] with the page address and details of the image. We log every report, re-check the file's licence, and remove or replace the image while the matter is investigated if there is any doubt. Licensing reports are handled under our Corrections Policy.
Our wider standards are set out in the Editorial Policy and the Fact-Checking Methodology, and general questions can be sent via our Contact page. More about the site is on the About page.