Widen Your World – Credits Page

No one’s encouragement, however, eclipses that of my amazing wife, Amy.  She’ll never be bored enough to read this, but her support was and remains vital.

The proliferation of online resources since WYW came to the internet in 1996 surprised a lot of us as it went from a handful of sites with small photos to countless galleries of high-res images, with links to once-rare audio and video commonplace and torrent files making source-quality park music and crystal clear video downloadable at high speeds.  It’s such a change … in much the same way that people once drove to record stores to find Echo & the Bunnymen imports, Disney collectors once had to rely on more old school techniques when locating old guide books, photos, audio.  I had to create a newsletter in 1989, for example, before I had much success locating pictures of If You Had Wings.  The internet rewrote everything, and even if some people miss the more arduous and rewarding nature of “the hunt,” my guess is that few resist what’s on flickr and mousebits on principle.

All of this makes it difficult to give proper/accurate credit for all media.  If someone sent me a picture of a Swan Boat in 1992, it was a singular moment achieved via the postal service and I’ll pretty much remember their name.  Now, with a spurious electronic discharge of media 24/7, true authorship can be impossible to prove.  In 2007, someone e-mailed me a .jpg file of RCA’s Home of Future Living and in 2008 I saw the same photo on another person’s photobucket account.  I tried to credit the right person but may never know who actually took the picture.  So if an image on WYW is not attributed to someone, it’s generally because it either came from WDW’s own media or because I took the photo myself (photos with widenyourworld.net on them are in the latter category).  Unless this site goes commercial, which ain’t likely, making a sincere effort to properly attribute items will be the approach.

I only ask the same in return.  When people take images or text directly from WYW and reuse them, they usually give credit.  Other times, not.  I always knew anything I posted online would be “out there” forevermore and it’s way past the point where I expect to be asked if something’s okay with me (if you credit WYW, it certainly is ), but I appreciate those people who are really courteous about it.

As for rare art from WDW/WED archives, if someone sends scans with permission to use them, I may do so without using the sender’s name in direct conjunction for the express purpose of protecting the sender (even if they don’t think they need protection!).  I won’t claim authorship of, or watermark, the items but in general I think concept art and visual documentation of ex-attractions should be online for WDW fans to enjoy vs. hiding in file drawers.  If I can help achieve that while also using the images to provide historical context, I will.  Any helpful individuals NOT requesting anonymity, however, will be listed on this page.