RIA Novosti celebrates 70th anniversary, uploads 100 images to Wikimedia Commons

June 23, 2011

Celebrating their 70th anniversary, news agency , along with the Russian chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, have started the 'Eternal Values' project. This project includes the release of images from RIA ' s archive to the public under free licenses.

During the first phase, one hundred World War II-time photos were uploaded to under the  share alike license. The license allows the images to be freely used, including within the commercial industry without a fee and allows for creations of derivative works provided any resulting work is redistributed under the same license and properly attributed to its author. The project is supported by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who uploaded one of the images to Wikimedia Commons himself.

Medvedev participated in the anniversary ceremony and personally congratulated the agency. He uploaded the 100th image to Commons. Earlier Medvedev supported Wikimedia Russia's position on the need for changes in Russian legislation in order to make free licenses perfectly legal and to allow in the country.

This event is part of Wikimedia Russia's goal to "share knowledge, eliminate the and increase the availability of historical and cultural value for society." Due to similar projects in other countries, German Bundesarchiv released 100,000 historic images under a free license and Queensland State Library released 50,000 images.