> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.lightdrift.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Rights answers

> How to read the rights object, and what Lightdrift does and does not promise.

Every result Lightdrift returns carries a `rights` object. The goal is simple: your agent should never have to guess what it's allowed to do with an image.

## Hosted images

Lightdrift hosts Creative Commons-licensed images on its own servers. Results include hosted file URLs alongside the original source, license, and attribution information. Hosting a file does not change its license or remove its conditions.

## Rights information

Lightdrift reports rights **as declared by the source**. We collect the license and permission information a source publishes alongside each image and normalize it into one machine-readable shape. Hosting an image does not mean it is cleared for every use. Read its license conditions and consider any rights beyond copyright.

That means:

* **Copyright** — the license shown is what the source declared. For well-governed sources (CC0, Creative Commons, US-government public domain) declarations are reliable in practice, but they remain declarations.
* **Beyond copyright** — a copyright license never covers everything. People in a photo have likeness rights; logos have trademark rights; some buildings and artworks have their own restrictions. Clearing those is on you and your users.

The `basis` field records how rights information was obtained. Read it together with the license and permission flags.

## The fields

| Field                  | What it tells you                                                                             |
| ---------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `license`              | Normalized license identifier: `cc0`, `cc-by`, `cc-by-sa`, `cc-by-nc`, `pdm`, `us-gov-pd`, …  |
| `license_verbatim`     | The license text exactly as the source published it.                                          |
| `commercial`           | Whether commercial use is permitted.                                                          |
| `derivatives`          | Whether derivative works are permitted.                                                       |
| `share_alike`          | Whether derivatives must carry the same license.                                              |
| `attribution_required` | Whether attribution is required.                                                              |
| `attribution`          | A ready-to-use attribution string (title, author, source, license). `null` when not required. |
| `provenance_url`       | The source page the asset and its declaration were collected from.                            |
| `basis`                | How the rights information was obtained.                                                      |

Noncommercial licenses (`cc-by-nc`, `cc-by-nc-sa`, `cc-by-nc-nd`) **are in the corpus** and come back with `commercial: false`. Set `filters.commercial: true` to select images whose reported licenses permit commercial use. Check the other license conditions and any rights beyond copyright before use.

## A practical reading order for agents

1. Check `license` against what the task needs (`commercial`, `derivatives`).
2. If `attribution_required` is `true`, carry `attribution` through to the final output.
3. Treat `null` permission flags as "the source didn't say," not as "no."
4. If the subject is a person, logo, or artwork, remember those rights are separate from the copyright license.