Google is hosting an image archive of LIFE photos:
Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.
More at the Google Blog. Some great historical photos of print shops.
Share your favorite discoveries in the comments.
Discussion
By Hudson Atwell on Nov 18, 2008
So will the pictures be in the public domain now?
By Michael Jahn on Nov 19, 2008
I do not think these images are "Public Domian".
I am not a lawyer, but I do notice that when I viewed several images - they all have a copywrite notice (c) Time in the lower left hand corner, and they all offer a way to purchase them (via QOOP) - http://www.qoop.com/
hope that helps!
By Adam Dewitz on Nov 19, 2008
According to Staci Kramer at PaidContent the photos are free for personal, non-commercial use. Commercial use requires licensing with Time's commercial syndication business.
By Eddy Hagen (VIGC) on Nov 23, 2008
It may be a bit far fetched, but is the first step of Google into hosted DAM-systems???
It happened with company search software, where they have challenged the traditional vendors (although I have no idea about their market penetration in that area). Google has a very, very strong brand name in search and if they now show that they can open up image archives, people might go to Google for image databases, just because they are familiar with Google, with their search. Even if the existing DAM-systems provide better services, better search...
Some food for thought...
Regards,
Eddy