Walters Art Museum Goes CCO!

One of the biggest concerns when using images in projects, papers, and presentations is copyright restrictions. That’s why it’s so exciting to report that the Walters Art Museum has made all their digital images, as well as the accompanying metadata, freely available via a Creative Commons Zero license.

What this means is that anyone can use any image from their website, for any purpose, without permission or fear of violating any copyright restrictions. The digital images are of high quality, easy to search, and simple to download. Those looking for higher-resolution images for publishing are encouraged to contact their photo services department.

The museum is encyclopedic in scope and offers thousands of images of artwork from the ancient world, Asia, Medieval and Renaissance Europe, and the Islamic world.

 

High-Quality Images from the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum

The Amsterdam Rijksmuseum has made images from its “basic collection” – a little over 103,000 objects – available under a Creative Commons BY 3.0 license which allows you to:

  • Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
  • Remix — to adapt the work
  • Make commercial use of the work

These images may be used not only for classroom study and research but also for publishing, as long as the museum receives proper attribution. The collections database, in Dutch, is available here. Over 70,000 objects are also cataloged using ICONCLASS subject headings in English; this interface is available here. Click here for an example of the scan quality.