Open Images: Towards an Audiovisual Commons

Open Images (www.openimages.eu) is an open media platform that offers online access to audiovisual archive material from various sources to stimulate -creativereuse. Footage from audiovisual collections can be downloaded and remixed into new works. Users also have the opportunity to add their own material to the Open Images and thus expand the collection. Open Images provides an API (http://www.openimages.eu/api), making it easy for third parties to develop mashups. The platform currently (April 2011) offers access to over 1.400 items from various sources, including a considerable number of newsreels from the collection of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. This amount will grow substantially over the coming years as new items will be uploaded continuously, and as new partners join the initiative.