Wired.com photo policy: all staff-produced photos will now be Creative Commons licensed

Wired.com has a new photo policy: "Beginning today, we’re releasing all Wired.com staff-produced photos under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC) license and making them available in high-res format on a newly launched public Flickr stream." They've commemorated the event by releasing 50 of their archival images under the same terms, including this fab Jim Merithew shot from The Toy and Action Figure Museum. Bravo!

Wired.com Goes Creative Commons: 50 Great Images That Are Now Yours

• [Donald Petersen]

  Does anyone else find it odd that Wonder Woman has more thunderous thighs than, say, Flash?

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    They look bigger because the color is lighter. I’m pretty sure that they all have the same thighs.

    • [Donald Petersen]

      Hmm.  Yeah, I guess you’re right.  Odd way to economize one’s molds.  I suppose she probably has Batman’s calves, too, since their boots appear to be shaped the same.  Since her thigh measurement approaches her waist size I was getting a bit alarmed (though the lens makes it look even worse on Supergirl at the far right).

      Of course, it’s a fool who goes looking for merely human proportions in the halls of the Justice League.

  • [Amy L Sacks]

    I’m just ecstatic that the Legion of Superheroes made it all the way to the second row.

    If being a fan of superhero comics = being part of an arcane cult, then being a Legion fan = being part of a cult within a cult.

    (Oh, and a raspberry to DC’s marketers for being –as ever– so disinclined to promote female characters.)

• [tedder42]

  Hrm. Why CC-NC (noncommercial)? That restricts usage of the photos. For instance, they can’t be used on Wikipedia. It seems like there are few cases where CC-NC is freer than Fair Use.

  • [tedder42]

    So Kuro5hin has a treatise on the problems with CC-NC:
    http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/9/11/16331/0655

    Thanks to @wikistrategies:twitter for bringing it (back) up.

• [MrJM]

  The foreshortening used in that photo makes the Atom look huge!

• [johngoad]

  Thanks Wired … After reading this announcement I purchased a subscription. It pays to share.

• [J]

  That’s nice that they’re releasing 50 photos with a CC-license, though I’ve got to say, having just gone and looked at the photos I don’t see what benefit anyone will get from most of them; most are barely notable (if at all) and with no context (or other metadata) given other than the title, there’s little to connect these pics to anything.

  Out of all the thousands of photos that Wired has had over the years, the fact that they’ve selected these leaves me nonplussed.

• [pjcamp]

  It actually looks like Wonder Woman and Superman have the same thighs.

  I’m getting all gender confused.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    If you’re old enough, you might recall that The Mighty Hercules has softness in his eyes, iron in his thighs. No mixed messages about sex there, children.

    • [Donald Petersen]

      Wow… I believe I might actually be old enough (for reruns, anyway).  My buddy Sal used to slightly alter the lyrics: “with the strength of ten plastic Army men…”

• [quitterjunior]

  I am fascinated, if ambivalent about CC.  Tedder42 is, perhaps, expecting too much.  I love the idea of ex-ante remix impunity.  I’m glad if CC has facilitated that impunity, in any instance.  But I’m sure commercial uses will never fly.  It would obviate the point of a license. Why insist on a commercial CC except to bombastically commit your work to the public domain?  Brilliant entree into CC issues, though Cory; sadly I think the photo has been kind of a thread-herring so far.  

• [benher]

  See? Now this is a  wonderful thing. I wonder who else will follow suit.

• [dreadpiraterobert]

  Wired is wonderful for doing this.  Thank you, but I’m a little concerned that Wonder Woman got her panties in a bunch.  It looks uncomfortable.

  Also, Hawkman is just too badass for this photo.  And, clearly, the DC Universe.

• [vicx]

  @j @tedder42 Is BY-SA the preferred license?

• [doggo]

  Meh. Not to be ungrateful, but none of those are going into my slideshow-of-awesome-photos-I’ve-found-on-the-Internet collection. Now, if they included some of the Wired cover photos… Still, it’s a nice gesture.

• [Michael Crumpton]

  I don’t know about now, but when Conde Nast bought Wired they made all the freelance artists sign a contract that gave CN unlimited rights in perpetuity for any work that you did for them, and for this huge expansion of rights they offered no increase in fees. So if I did an image for an article in Wired they could use it in ad campaigns, other publications, and really anything at all and I would have no rights at all to do anything with the image I created.

• [quitterjunior]

  At first I was a little miffed that no one ever responds to my posts in these threads.  Now it’s clear.  No one reads the text or threads.  Post a pictures of minecraft sock puppets under the headline “Iran’s Nuclear Threat is a Yarn.”  Guess how many comments are about Baby Beard on Etsy.  I just wasn’t made for these times.  

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    It’s entirely random.

  • [Donald Petersen]

    FWIW, +1 for “thread-herring.”  I just know next to nothing about CC issues, but when Wonder Woman’s figure looks more than properly Amazonian, I’m liable to say something.  I’ll read the text and the threads if they look interesting to me, and I’m certainly not too proud to comment, even on matters where my qualification to opine is seriously suspect.  But don’t take the short attention span of the commentariat personally.  You may not have been made for these times, but you were made in these times.  We take what we can get.