The Met releases tens of thousands of images of art online for free
Art lovers from around the world, rejoice: New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is flooding the internet with classic works from its collection.
Overall, it's releasing 375,000 images of public domain art for viewing on the web and unrestricted use in a partnership with Wikimedia.
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The new initiative rolled out on Thursday and is going full-steam to promote the effort and make sure the world knows how to gain access.
Richard Knipel, the museum's first "Wikimedian in Residence," wrote a terrific blog post that gives a bit more detail about the ongoing project, part of the museum's new Open Access policy.
While much of the Met’s collection are historical works in the public domain, the Met is now lifting any licensing restrictions on its own photography of these artworks, and unambiguously releasing them under CC0, so they can be used freely online. With the Met’s CC0 release today and updating of its licensing policy, images of the Met’s public domain artwork will be freely available online to be reused for any purpose, without restriction under copyright law.
Users can browse the museum's collection (or via the Creative Commons search) and download and use images classified as in the public domain for whatever they want: school projects, personal use, even web stories like, well, this one.
Just look on the page for each piece of art for the "Public Domain" symbol and -- boom -- you've got art!
In a statement, Thomas P. Campbell, director and CEO of the museum, said, "Increasing access to the Museum's collection and scholarship serves the interests and needs of our 21st-century audiences by offering new resources for creativity, knowledge, and ideas. We thank Creative Commons, an international leader in open access and copyright, for being a partner in this effort."
The museum is also cranking up partnerships with Creative Commons, Wikimedia, Artstor, Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), Art Resource, and even Pinterest to help publicize the new initiative.
Marcus Gilmer is Mashable's Assistant Real-Times News Editor on the West Coast, reporting on breaking news from his location in San Francisco. An Alabama native, Marcus earned his BA from Birmingham-Southern College and his MFA in Communications from the University of New Orleans. Marcus has previously worked for Chicagoist, The A.V. Club, the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.
