Museums are giving it away for free.

As the music industries and newspapers struggle with retaining ownership of (and income from) words and music, musuems are putting their collections online. Not only can the public view famous pieces of artiwork, they can also download high resolution images and even alter the images to create their own works of art. All for free. No $15 “suggested” admission price.

For fun, play with Google Art collection or the Rijksmuseum.

This is pretty amazing stuff. Why are art museums going in the opposition from newspapers, music, and book publishers? Maybe greater access to the arts will drive foot traffic to the museums? Is this an attempt to bring younger art patrons into the fold? Is this a good model for the opera, the ballet, and the classical music industries, which are suffering from the aging of their audience?