Google Hosting Time-Life Photo Archive, 10 Million Unpublished Images Now Live

TimeWarner and Google have announced that starting today Google will make available millions of images from the Life Magazine photo archive. The vast majority (97 percent) of these images have never been seen by the public (they were sitting around in physical envelopes). These are hard-copy photographs that have been or are being scanned by Google and will be hosted by Google. They will show up in Google.com and Google Image search results. All these photos are available in high-resolution (5 and 6 megapixels).

The images will be free to use for “personal and research purposes” but will be digitally watermarked to prevent unauthorized or unlicensed commercial uses. There are links to appropriate contacts for those who want to use the images commercially.

The images are labeled by subject(s) and organized by decade and category. They can also be searched by photographer and date. In other words you can search for all images by a particular photographer in a particular year or decade.

Why would TimeWarner do this? The company merchandises the photography and there’s a link on every page to a Time page where people can purchase the image:

Today about “three million images” are present, according to Google’s RJ Pittman, and roughly seven million more will be added as they’re scanned over time.

The photos are accessible through a dedicated front door but are also integrated into the core image search index. Pittman said that working on this project for roughly a year has yielded benefits and improvements that will be integrated into Google image search as a whole. He added that Google is looking to make image search, including the interface, better and suggested that the Life archive represents something of a preview of how Google image search could develop over time.

Google isn’t monetizing these images specifically at the present.