The Wired CD

The Wired CD is an album that was released in 2004 as a collaborative effort between Wired magazine, Creative Commons, and sixteen musicians and groups. The Wired CD was distributed inside the front cover of the November 2004 issue of Wired, which also featured a variety of interviews and bios of the performers. Unusually, the songs were released under one of two Creative Commons Licenses, permitting sampling and file-sharing of the songs.

The WIRED CD was the first major compilation of music free to sample and share under Creative Commons' "some rights reserved" copyright. The groundbreaking album features tracks from the Beastie Boys, David Byrne, Zap Mama, My Morning Jacket, Spoon, Gilberto Gil, Dan the Automator, Thievery Corporation, Le Tigre, Paul Westerberg, Fine Arts Militia featuring Chuck D, The Rapture, Cornelius, Danger Mouse & Jemini, DJ Dolores, and Matmos.

In 2005, Creative Commons and Wired Magazine launched The Fine Art of Sampling Contest in which contestants sampled the tracks from The Wired CD to create their own composition. The top winning entries were subsequently compiled onto a CD entitled The Wired CD: Ripped. Sampled. Mashed. Shared.