Yale Museums Making Thousands Of Artwork Images Available For Free Downloading - Hartford Courant

"Often when people visit museums, they leave wishing they could see a certain piece of art every day. Yale University's art museums are making that easier. Want Van Gogh's 'The Night Cafe,' owned by Yale University Art Gallery, as your desktop wallpaper? Download a high-res TIFF at artgallery.yale.edu. Want to post on your blog that J.M.W. Turner you saw at Yale Center for British Art? Download a TIFF at britishart.yale.edu. On those websites, anyone is welcome to download public-domain artworks free of charge and use them any way they want, even if that usage is for-profit, such as the publication of a book. The New Haven art spaces, as well as the campus' Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, are at the forefront of a growing museum trend to digitize public-domain artworks in their collections and make them available for free downloading online. This reverses a traditional practice — still in place at most museums — of charging fees for rights and reproductions and releasing images only to those who pay the fees ..."