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I am a game developer and while searching for assets to put in my game I stumbled across this website. I came across this website and the FAQs were not clear on whether or not I can use the assets for my game. There wasn't a license said on the website. Here are my reasons for both sides:

Yes

  1. I can use the assets for "your business," meaning I can put them in my game.
  2. I am allowed to use them for Websites, Blogs, Forums, Social Networks, and Guest Books.
  3. This website did come when I searched for "animated fire gif cc0."

No

  1. I am not allowed to use them in "image archives" or "image collections."
  2. I am not allowed to use the use the graphics "commercially through reproduction."
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    Hey there! Nobody in the world wants to get sued - and I'm just going to remind you that nothing you get here is a valid substitute for legal advice :)
    – Zizouz212
    Oct 7, 2016 at 23:19
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    Have to comment that your reasoning under This website did come when I searched for "animated fire gif cc0." is very unsafe. Unless you actually see the CC0 license linked clearly and directly assigned to the image you are considering, then you should not assume your search has filtered by the applied license. Even in that case, bad actors and/or confused people may apply a license which is not their right to assign (i.e. they are not the copyright holder), and it would still be your problem even though you used the image in good faith.
    – Neil Slater
    Oct 8, 2016 at 16:23
  • @Zizouz212 Thanks for the reminder!
    – Jack
    Oct 8, 2016 at 23:24
  • @NeilSlater Just a supporting detail which may help he case. I was trying to make my reasons as detailed as possible. Thank you for the tip, though, I will definitely keep that in mind...
    – Jack
    Oct 8, 2016 at 23:25

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I consider most anything to be copyrightable and therefore copyrighted as they are.

Images are copyrightable and therefore you cannot use these images without a proper license. If the license is not clear and explicit and allows the type of usage you plan in your game, you cannot use these images.

Per http://www.animatedimages.org/help.htm animatedimages does seem to grant some usage right that I could interpret as some open source license of sorts. At the same time, they (the animatedimages site) may not even have clear rights to some images as they state on their help page:

Where do your graphics come from?

All graphics offered by us have either been provided by our users or they were created or collected by our team. For images uploaded by our users, we have no control over the content. This applies both to the text and the graphics. If certain graphics or greeting cards infringe copyright laws or fail to meet our internal guidelines, please send us a quick note via mail.

Therefore, you are a bit between a rock and a hard place:

You could ask animatedimages for a clear open source license to some animated images to use in your game. But at the same time, they may not have clear rights to these and no ground to license these to you if they do not "own" them.

Your best course of action would be to contact them and/or consider an alternative source of media assets for your game.

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