Wired.com goes creative commons: Memeburn’s 10 favourite images

Wired has a long and well-respected history and standing in the tech world. Hardly surprising given that it has been providing “a glimpse into the future of business, culture, innovation, and, science” since January 1993.

In its 18-year history, Wired photographers have been at some of the most iconic and memorable moments in tech. From Steve Jobs surrounded by adoring fans as he makes his way up to the stage to make one of his famous “one more thing” announcements, to Trent Reznor being beautifully captured mid-performance, Wired.com staff-produced photos are now available for free use.

“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,” Wired recently announced.

While the images are free for use, there are some restrictions and guidelines.

Wired will be releasing a number of its images under the CC license, however, not every image on Wired.com will be available for use. As the publication explains, “we need to own the copyright on an image in order to license it, and many images that appear on Wired.com belong to others”.

Placing our photos under CC BY-NC license means that designated images are free for all to republish, with minor restrictions, as follows:

• Photos must be properly attributed to the photographer and Wired.com, and, if used online, we ask for a link back to the original story where the photo first appeared.
• We welcome editorial use by bloggers or any other publisher, but we are not authorizing commercial use, like using one of our photos in an advertisement.
• Remixes and mashups are allowed.

In announcing the change in policy, Wired compiled a gallery of 50 of the images already available under the CC license. Since then, it has been updating the Flickr stream which in future will be the best and easiest source for knowing which images are for free use.

Here are Memeburn’s favourite 10.

Trent Reznor at a fully interactive and visually stunning NiN performance. Image first published here.

A dancer at Microsoft’s E3 Press Conference in 2010. Image first published here.

A statue of the iconic Bruce Lee taken at Comic-Con 2010. Image first published here.

Jake Gylenhaal was interviewed by Wired when the Prince of Persia movie was released. Image first published here.

An amusing poster from Comic-Con 2010. Image first published here

Steve Jobs at his penultimate WWDC conference in 2010. Image first published here

Another image of Jobs at WWDC 2008. Image first published here.

The Woz, being The Woz, as only The Woz can be. Image first published here.

They start them young at Comic-Con. Image first published here.

The ultimate nerd collection. Image first published here.