About The Image reported today that UK Agency Wellcome Images, formerly Wellcome Trust Medical Photographic Library, is now offering all of it’s imagery to teachers, students, researchers, and the public under a Creative Commons License. The non-commercial accredited, (sometimes non-derivative) license is a great resource, and serves as a fine example of how images can be given away.
For example, this photo of human brain neurons is credited to Benedict Campbell, Wellcome Images.
Personally, I think this type of use is the arena is where microstock pricing is most appropriate. It’s not giving away commercial use for mere pennies, but they could have still monetized the collection at a price point most educators, students, researchers could afford. This would basically be the same set of rights as the Creative Commons. However, once you cross the line and assign an actual creative commons license, the words, “You are free to…” seem to lay emphasis on the ‘free’ part.
But when photographers seemingly flock to microstock sites to sell (read: give-away) unlimited commercial use of an image for a few dollars, often because they can’t gain entry at more traditional agencies, the real giving away of these images is much more respectable. You’ll note that even though a CCL is applied to these images, if your use goes beyond the scope of the rights granted, then these images are still licensed as rights managed.
Anyway, good on them for opening the doors to this collection for educational and personal use, but keeping the commercial use off the chopping block.
