In this morning's New York Times (2/8/17) there is an article saying that the Met Museum is making its digital collection of public domain artwork available
"All images of public-domain artworks in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection — about 375,000 — are now free for anyone to use however they may please. The museum announced on Tuesday that it had changed its open access policy to allow free, unrestricted use of any images of artworks in the public domain, using the license designation Creative Commons Zero, known as CC0."
The entire article is here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/arts/design/met-museum-makes-375000-images-available-for-free.html?_r=0
May we use these high definition files for our cover artwork?
The article also mentions that similar arrangements are available at the National Gallery of Art and the Rijksmuseum. I haven't had an opportunity to check this out but assuming the same permission, may we use those files for our cover artwork too?
Evidently they are also being made available through wikimedia.
Edit: NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
OPEN ACCESS POLICY FOR IMAGES OF WORKS OF ART PRESUMED IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
With the launch of NGA Images, the National Gallery of Art implements an open access policy for digital images of works of art that the Gallery believes to be in the public domain. Images of these works are now available free of charge for any use, commercial or non-commercial. Users do not need to contact the Gallery for authorization to use these images. They are available for download at the NGA Images website (images.nga.gov). See Policy Details below for specific instructions and notes for users.
Thanks for your help.
Artwork Metropolitan Museum of Art
https://images.nga.gov/en/page/show_home_page.htmldavid wales wrote:May we use these high definition files for our cover artwork?
Yes, you may !!
CC0 is another way of saying Public Domain; the NGA website also uses the phrase "Open Access" as a Public Domain identifier.
David O
This is the link to the page:
https://ccsearch.creativecommons.org/?search_fields=title&search_fields=tags&search_fields=creator&providers=met
I've been using it for my own etexts. Be aware that the art appears to be all pre-1923. There's no Edward Hopper, Rene Magritte, Jackson Pollock, John Sloane, Picasso -- or even Cezanne. They do have a lot of other French Impressionists, but the most recent artist I could find was Schiele. Be forewarned on the latter: not for children. Ditto the collection of Stieglitz nudes of Georgia O'Keefe. Ironically, none of her paintings are available either. Also, a lot of the artists represented only have one or two paintings -- bulk of the available art is in the form of preliminary sketches -- simply because MMA doesn't own the other artwork.
Another thing to point out: while the Creative Commons search page is under https protocol, the results are not. I recommend taking screenshots instead of right-clicking on the free images to avoid hacks. You must also copy and paste the Creative commons license for each work if you're going to use it in your own etext, CD cover, et al.
https://ccsearch.creativecommons.org/?search_fields=title&search_fields=tags&search_fields=creator&providers=met
I've been using it for my own etexts. Be aware that the art appears to be all pre-1923. There's no Edward Hopper, Rene Magritte, Jackson Pollock, John Sloane, Picasso -- or even Cezanne. They do have a lot of other French Impressionists, but the most recent artist I could find was Schiele. Be forewarned on the latter: not for children. Ditto the collection of Stieglitz nudes of Georgia O'Keefe. Ironically, none of her paintings are available either. Also, a lot of the artists represented only have one or two paintings -- bulk of the available art is in the form of preliminary sketches -- simply because MMA doesn't own the other artwork.
Another thing to point out: while the Creative Commons search page is under https protocol, the results are not. I recommend taking screenshots instead of right-clicking on the free images to avoid hacks. You must also copy and paste the Creative commons license for each work if you're going to use it in your own etext, CD cover, et al.
My previous LV work: Bellona Times