(Image: Getty. Public domain!)

(Image: Getty. Public domain!)

Early on in the OCW effort, we were using Getty images for the home pages of our courses, but we ultimately stopped using them and replaced those we had included because they were not available under our site’s open license.
We’re thrilled to hear that Getty has now begun an effort to share images more openly, starting with their collection of digital copies of public domain artworks.  This is a fantastic contribution to the body of openly available educational and cultural resources, and this effort by Getty has the potential to make much more significant impact in years to come.
From the announcement:

Open Content, An Idea Whose Time Has Come
Today the Getty becomes an even more engaged digital citizen, one that shares its collections, research, and knowledge more openly than ever before. We’ve launched the Open Content Program to share, freely and without restriction, as many of the Getty’s digital resources as possible.
The initial focus of the Open Content Program is to make available all images of public domain artworks in the Getty’s collections. Today we’ve taken a first step toward this goal by making roughly 4,600 high-resolution images of the Museum’s collection free to use, modify, and publish for any purpose.
These are high-resolution, reproduction-quality images with embedded metadata, some over 100 megabytes in size. You can browse all available images here, or look for individual “download” links on the Getty Museum’s collection pages. As part of the download, we’ll ask for a very brief description of how you’re planning to use the image. We hope to learn that the images will serve a broad range of needs and projects.  Read more.

Congratulations to the Getty team on launching this effort.