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Clip art, in the graphic arts, refers to pre-made images used to illustrate any media. Today, clip art is used extensively in both personal and commercial projects, ranging from home-printed greeting cards to commercial candles. Clip art comes in many forms, both electronic and printed. However, most clip art today is created, distributed, and used in an electronic form. Since its inception, clip art has evolved to include a wide variety of content, file formats, illustration styles, and licensing restrictions. Clip art is generally composed exclusively of illustrations (created by hand or by computer software), and does not include stock photography
The term "clip art" originated through the practice of physically cutting images from pre-existing printed works for use in other publishing projects. Before the advent of computers in publishing, clip art was used through a process called paste up. Many clip art images in this era qualified as line art. In this process, the clip art images are cut out by hand, then attached via adhesives to a board representing a scale size of the finished, printed work. After the addition of text and art created through phototypesetting, the finished, camera-ready pages are called mechanicals. Since the 1990s, nearly all publishers have replaced the paste up process with desktop publishing.
After the introduction of mass-produced personal computers such as the IBM PC in 1981 and the Apple Macintosh in 1984, the widespread use of clip art by consumers became possible through the invention of desktop publishing. Most people credit Apple Computer with providing desktop publishing with the tools required to make it a reality for consumers, with the introduction of the Macintosh's graphical user interface (GUI) in 1984 and the LaserWriter laser printer in late 1985. After software maker Aldus introduced PageMaker in 1985, professional quality desktop publishing became possible with consumer desktop computers.
After 1986, desktop publishing generated a widespread need for pre-made, electronic images as consumers began to produce newsletters and brochures using their own computers. Electronic clip art emerged to fill the need. Early electronic clip art was simple line art or bitmap images due to the lack of sophisticated electronic illustration tools. With the introduction of the Apple Macintosh program MacPaint, consumers were provided the ability to edit and use bitmapped clip art for the first time. In 1986, Adobe Systems introduced Adobe Illustrator for the Macintosh, allowing home computer users the first opportunity to manipulate vector art in a GUI.
In the early 2000s, the World Wide Web continued to gain popularity as a retail software distribution channel, and several companies pioneered the sale of clip art through online, searchable libraries, including Clipart.com (part of Jupiter Media), WeddingClipart.com (part of Letters and Arts Incorporated), and GraphicsFactory.com (part of Clip Art Incorporated). Because of the Web, clip art is now not only sold through retail channels as packaged bundles of images, but also as individual images and subscriptions to entire libraries (which allow you to download an unlimited number of images for the duration of the subscription).
All clip art usage is governed by the terms of individual copyrights and usage rights. The copyright and usage rights of a clip art image are important to understand so that the image is used in a legal, permitted way. The three most common categories of image rights are royalty free, rights managed, and public domain.
Most commercial clip art is sold with a limited royalty free license which allows customers to use the image for most personal, educational and non-profit applications. Some royalty free clip art also includes limited commercial rights (the right to use images in for-profit products). However, royalty free image rights often vary from vendor to vendor.
Some fine art clip art is still sold on a rights managed basis. However this type of image rights have seen a steep decline in the past 20 years as royalty free licenses have become the preferred model for clip art.
Public domain images continue to be one of the most popular types of clip art because the image rights are free. However, many images are erroneously described as part of the public domain are actually copyrighted, and thus illegal to use without proper permissions. The main cause for this confusion is due to the fact that once a public domain image is redrawn or edited in any way, it becomes a brand new image which is copyrightable by the editor.
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