Metropolitan Museum releases thousands of ancient images to public domain | Ancient Origins

"The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has just announced the release of more than 400,000 high-resolution digital images into the public domain from its world-renowned collection, according to a news release in Art Daily.   The now freely available images include thousands of ancient figurines, reliefs, paintings, manuscripts, and other artifacts spanning a period of 10,000 years, and covering all the great civilizations of our ancient past, as well as hundreds of cultures across the globe. The new initiative called Open Access for Scholarly Content (OASC), means that images may be downloaded directly from the Museum’s website for non-commercial use without permission from the Museum and without a fee.  OASC was developed as a resource for students, educators, researchers, curators, academic publishers, non-commercial documentary filmmakers, and others involved in scholarly or cultural work. Prior to the establishment of OASC, the Metropolitan Museum provided images upon request, for a fee, and authorization was subject to strict terms and conditions ..."