Launch Open Images!

September 24th 2009

On 24 September 2009 Sound and Vision launched Open Images, a new and open media platform that offers access to a selection of archive material to stimulate creative reuse. Footage from these audiovisual collections can be remixed into new works. Users of Open Images then have the opportunity to add their new material to the platform, in order to expand the archive.



Creative Commons

The access to the material on Open Images is based on the Creative Commons licensing model. Creative Commons offers authors, artists, scientists and teachers the freedom to manage their copyrights flexibly and to provide access for others to their works in either way they choose. That way, not all rights are reserved – as is the case within the traditional copyright – but only the rights of choice.

This ‘open’ nature is also underscored in the technique of the platform, by adapting open formats, standards and open software components. Furthermore, all software that is developed as a result from Open Images will be released under an open source license.

Besides remixing archive materials, Open Images offers the possibility of interlinking with other data sources. Within the Open Images project dozens of ‘Polygoon’ items (fragments of a historical Dutch news program) have been added to entries of Dutch Wikipedia. For example, to the entry about Almere, where the description of the city’s history is expanded with an audiovisual illustration about its first inhabitants. In cooperation with Wikimedia Netherlands it is now being investigated how Open Images, following this experiment, can contribute audiovisually to Wikipedia on a structural basis.



Open Images is an initiative of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in cooperation with the Netherlands Knowledgeland Foundation. Open Images offers over 200 ‘Polygoon’ items from the Sound and Vision archives. The collection of reusable material will grow extensively for the coming years; new works will be uploaded weekly. 

Everybody is more than welcome to add material to the platform. Not only collection institutes and producers, but also creatives making new footage based on Open Images fragments. Open Images has been developed as part of Images for the Future, which enables digitization and provision of audiovisual heritage on a large scale.



More information: www.openbeelden.nl