Wired image releases via Creative Commons for SEO
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Wired Magazine has started to publish images under CC licence as reported here: http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/11/wired-releases-images-via-creative-commons-but-reopens-a-debate-on-what-noncommercial-means/
The images are found here http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2011/11/creative-commons/
They allow noncommercial use (though this is not clearly defined) and request to attribute to the original source and "ask for a link back to the original story where the photo first appeared". The latter does not seem to be compulsory, but of course is a great SEO tactic to generate deep links.
What's your take on this? Does anyone have experience with providing image material with the request to attribute you as the original source?
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Thanks Keri, nice resource. I guess the main issue now will be to sit down with legal department and hear what they have to say...
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The license for creative commons talks about attribution in the manner specified by the person that owns the work, so while it is phrased nicely, you should do what they ask as part of the license.
Michael Gray (graywolf) often uses images from Flickr with creative commons licenses, as well as contributes images. You might browse through his posts on image optimization at http://www.wolf-howl.com/tag/image-optimization/ to get some ideas of how you could use/provide images.
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No direct experience, but if you're images are being "stolen" and re-used anyway you might as well try and find a way to cater for this need in a legitimate way that also provides some kind of benefit.
I guess it really depends on what's important to you/your business. Finding ways to support the social sharing of material, generating some good will and generating backlinks is obviously more important to Wired than the actual images themselves.
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