"In a major step towards greater open access in France, Paris Musées is releasing its digital collections into the public domain with a CC0 waiver. Europeana's Douglas McCarthy spoke with Philippe Rivière, Head of Communication and Digital at Paris Musées, to find out more."
"Tell us all about the Paris Musées open access announcement.
From
January 2020, Paris Musées will begin releasing digital images of its
out-of-copyright works into the public domain under the Creative Commons
CC0
waiver. Our first release numbers more than 150,000 images and other
sets will follow. We are publishing the material set by set so that the
copyright status of the artworks and photographs can be carefully
evaluated.
Which collections and what type of images are being openly released?
Paris
Musées manages the fourteen museums of the City of Paris and altogether
the collection numbers over a million artworks. From archaeology to
fashion and contemporary art, the collections are remarkably diverse and
they are still being digitised. Since May 2016 our collections have
been accessible online at http://parismuseescollections.paris.fr/en.
What motivated Paris Musées to adopt open access now?
Paris
Musées has been working on its open access strategy for some time and
discussions intensified during the development of our collections
website. Our project team was aware of the international Open GLAM movement and we wanted to make our own contribution to it."