Since everything on StackExchange sites are licensed with cc-wiki, does that affect photos which are uploaded using the new upload tool?
For instance, if someone were to upload a photograph they took, and was asking a question such as why the lighting was weird, or how to prevent the bokeh from turning out in a particular way, would their photography have to be cc-wiki as well?
Official-type notice:
For the more complete answer see this meta.stackoverflow post.
But here's the gist: Photos uploaded to Stack Exchange sites are covered by our cc-wiki licensing rules, NOT Imgur's standard ones.
I would say that according to current terms of the Stack Exchange Network, the images inserted using the image tool are governed by the same license as the rest of content. There's a recent appeal to allow other licenses or at least make the applied license clear to the uploading person.
From "legal" section:
You agree that all Subscriber Content that You contribute to the Network will be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license.
Here, "Subscriber Content" is previously defined as:
Content posted by Subscriber (“Subscriber Content”)
where Content has been defined as
All materials displayed or performed on the Network, including, but not limited to text, graphics, logos, tools, photographs, images, illustrations, software or source code, audio and video, and animations (collectively, “Content”)
When you use the Image Upload tool, you do not contribute the URL of the image, that's generated for you behind the scenes; you do contribute the image. Yes, there's a notice "image hosting by imgur.com" in the corner, but that can hardly be considered legally binding to Imgur's ToS, especially considering that the API uses Stack Exchange account (with terms legally binding between SE and Imgur). Outsourcing image hosting perfectly is perfectly normal under SE terms:
You grant Stack Exchange the right and license to use, copy, cache, publish, display, distribute, modify, create derivative works and store such Subscriber Content and to allow others to do so (“Content License”) in order to provide the Services.
