---
type: Public Guide
title: Image Use and Rights
description: How Photobots processes selected images, what visitors should
  choose, and how public gallery works are cleared.
tags:
  - photobots
  - images
  - rights
  - privacy
  - gallery
updated: 2026-07-22
audience: public
public: true
locale: en-AU
pageId: docs.image-use-and-rights
route: /docs/en/image-use-and-rights
canonicalUrl: https://photobots.netlify.app/docs/en/image-use-and-rights.html
markdownTwin: /docs/en/image-use-and-rights.md
sourceDigest: 593f22fb61ba07f37cd3346e1fc455fef3ef499fa46e8ae293d847b95a2ba8f8
translationState: source
relatedConcepts:
  - gallery
  - original
  - patina
sourceDocs:
  - docs/public/README.md
---

# Image Use and Rights

Photobots turns an image you choose into the energy field where its bots live.
This page explains what happens to that image and what to consider before
choosing one.

## Decorative Artwork Is Interpretive

Artwork used as page decoration or in social-media cards and link previews is
an artistic interpretation of Photobots themes. It is not a screenshot or
literal representation of the simulated bots, their anatomy or behaviour,
their world, or simulation output. Images explicitly identified as simulation
captures or gallery works are described separately.

## Your Image Stays Local

The public Photobots app prepares the selected image in your browser. It does
not send the image to a Photobots server, and selecting it does not add it to
the public gallery. Normal requests for the app, its worker code, and its WASM
engine still occur.

A downloaded **Photobots Patina Pack** also remains local. Creating one asks
your browser to download the registered images and their evidence; it does not
submit the pack, transfer rights, request review, or publish a Gallery Work.
If you complete the optional Gallery preparation form, the same local download
also contains draft permission records for you to inspect. Those files are
marked as draft review material; creating them does not approve their wording
or change the no-submission boundary.

## Choose an Image You May Use

Choose an image you created or one you have permission to reproduce, alter,
transmit, and display. Copyright ownership and authorship are different facts:
having a copy of an image does not necessarily make you its author or rights
owner. Consider any required credit and whether altering the work could affect
the creator's attribution or integrity rights.

Photobots cannot decide whether a particular image is lawful for you to use.
You remain responsible for the image you choose and the way you use any output.

## Public Gallery Works Are Curated Separately

Visitor sessions are not published automatically. A work enters the public
gallery only after a person selects the exact registered Original and Patina,
checks their evidence, and records a basis for using the source artwork in the
gallery.

The gallery's **Original** is the registered simulation baseline after image
preparation. It may differ in dimensions and bytes from the source file. The
source artwork's human author and copyright owner remain identified separately
where known.

## The Status of a Patina

A **Patina** is the registered Original after Photobots activity, with its
included world and bot-body layers stated for that work. The project does not
assume that this process creates separate copyright, or that Photobots itself
is a legal author. Each published work states whether a Patina copyright claim
is unasserted, pending legal review, or asserted on a recorded basis.

This information describes the project's process. It is not legal advice and
does not grant a licence to third-party material.