Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Sources Artworks

  • By Staff
  • 02/14/17

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in New York last week made images of its public-domain artworks even more accessible. Through a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, more than 375,000 images can now be used for both scholarly and commercial purposes.

The license expands on the MET’s 2014 Open Access for Scholarly Content initiative, which broadened access to more than 400,000 digital images, available for scholarly and non-commercial use.

“In our digital age, the Museum’s audience is not only the 6.7 million people who visited The Met’s three locations in New York City this past year but also the three-billion-plus internet-connected individuals around the world,” said Loic Tallon, chief digital officer, in the announcement. “Adopting the CC0 designation for our images and data is one of the most effective ways the Museum can help audiences gain access to the collection.”

In addition to aligning with Creative Commons, the MET has also formed partnerships with Wikimedia, Astor, Digital Public Library of America, Art Resource and Pinterest, as well as released a public GitHub repository.

Further information is available in the announcement here.

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