Creator Guide: Sourcing, Credit & Copyright

Anything you made yourself: your own photos, writing, and original music or narration.

Public domain work is free to use too. That means material old enough that its copyright has expired, or material made by the U.S. federal government. It includes a lot of historical photography, paintings, and literature. Good places to look:

• Museum open-access collections (the National Gallery of Art, for one, offers its collection free to use).
• Very old books, poems, and images. Roughly, anything published before the early 1930s is very likely public domain, and that date moves forward a year every January.
• U.S. government photography and documents.

Look for collections marked “open access” or “public domain,” not just old-looking images.

If the original is old enough to be in the public domain, as most historical paintings are, a plain, faithful photograph of it is generally free to use too, even if the museum restricts downloads on its own website. Under U.S. law, straightforward reproductions of public domain 2D art (paintings, prints, drawings) don’t get a new copyright.

Sculpture and other 3D work is different. A photograph of it can carry its own copyright, based on the photographer’s choices of angle and lighting. Downloading from a museum’s site may also mean agreeing to its terms of use, which is separate from copyright. If that’s a concern, look for the same image in an open-access collection or on Wikimedia Commons.

If you’re making an argument about something, such as analyzing a film’s costume design or discussing a musician’s technique, using a small amount of the work to illustrate your point can be reasonable. That’s often called “fair use,” but it isn’t a blanket permission. In general it means: use only as much as you need, keep the focus on your own commentary, and don’t use it in a way that replaces the original.

Fair use is not “it’s just for education,” “I gave credit,” or “it’s already public.” Those are common misconceptions, not protections on their own.

You can use AI to help structure your insho, tighten your writing, or generate simple visuals. If you do, say so in the Credits field. A short note like “narration: AI-generated” or “visuals: AI-assisted” is enough.

Works is for things made by hand and by skill, such as pottery, painting, sculpture, woodworking, restoration, embroidery, photography, writing, and music. Editing tools are part of the craft, so retouching a photo or polishing a line with AI help is fine. Work that was generated entirely by AI isn’t a fit for Works.

Nothing changes for Ideas, Collections, or Stories. AI-assisted narration, visuals, or writing help is still fine there, as long as you mention it in the Credits field.

Unlike Ideas, Collections, and Stories, Works is curated. Original pieces submitted to Works are reviewed before they go live, rather than publishing instantly.

Works is held to a quality bar similar to a small literary or arts journal. Not every submission is accepted. The aim is to keep Works a space for genuine, high-quality original work.

Works also has a bit more room. Ideas, Collections, and Stories run up to two minutes. Works pieces can run up to three. Writing in Works can also use up to 600 characters per slide, enough for a full stanza or a paragraph of prose. Every other Works piece, and every other category, stays at 280 characters. All pieces use 3 to 12 slides.

Curation is unpaid. It’s a place to share your work with the right audience.

From time to time, Insho may run open calls for Works submissions, sometimes with a theme, like the calls small journals and magazines run. Those will be announced clearly when they happen.

For now, music in an insho should be public domain, or used only as quoted lyrics with attribution, not as an audio recording. Public domain status changes year to year, so check before you use anything. Your own original music is always fine. Someone else’s music needs confirmation that you have permission.

Insho slides use a tall 4:5 frame, so images look their best when they’re close to that shape. Roughly 1080×1350 pixels is a good target on both the app and the website.

You don’t need to resize anything. Images close to 4:5 fill the frame, or nearly. Anything wider or taller is shown whole, with white space around it, so nothing gets cropped. Use the photo you want, even if its proportions are different.

File size and format: Images must be under 4 MB and in JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, or AVIF format. JPEG usually works best for photographs because it keeps files small without a visible loss in quality. If an image is rejected for being too large, most photo apps can re-save or compress it, usually with little visible difference.

Whatever a curious viewer would want to know: where your images came from, who wrote or performed anything you didn’t make yourself, any AI involvement, and sources for factual claims. It doesn’t need to be a bibliography, just enough for someone to trace it back.

Yes. An insho can introduce something longer you’ve made elsewhere, like a podcast episode, a newsletter, a video essay, or a documentary. It can also preview an upcoming exhibit, play, or show.

To send readers there, add a Call to Action slide with your link, or link words within any slide’s text. For the button text, something like “Listen to the full episode” or “Learn more about the show” works well.

The insho should be worth reading on its own. The link is for anyone who wants more.

Insho isn’t a marketplace, so please don’t link straight to a shop, store, ticketing, or checkout page. That applies to your credits, bio, profile links, and Call to Action slides.

Linking to your own website, Instagram, X, TikTok, newsletter, or portfolio is fine. If you’re promoting a show or exhibit, link to its page on your website, and people can find tickets from there.

Content made mainly to be sexual, rather than for artistic, historical, or educational reasons, isn’t allowed. That covers images, video, and music.

Art with nudity isn’t off-limits. A Renaissance painting, a classical sculpture, or a piece about the human form in an artistic or historical context is welcome, the way it would be in a museum. What matters is intent and context, not whether a body appears. Is the piece considering, documenting, or arguing something, or is the sexual content the point? If you’re unsure, ask yourself whether a museum would display it.

It can be removed if a rights holder flags it or if we catch it ourselves. Repeated or serious violations can affect your ability to keep posting. This isn’t meant to punish honest mistakes, but it helps to think about sourcing from the start.