.art (top-level domain)

.art is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet.

History
The .art TLD was entered into a registry agreement on March 24, 2016, between ICANN and UK Creative Ideas Limited, and it became available to the public on 10 May 2017. The founder of UK Creative Ideas and of .art is London-based investor and art collector Ulvi Kasimov, who invested $25 million on the domain initiative. There were nine other competing bids to operate the top-level domain. Domains were registered by tech companies, luxury brands, and cultural organizations; some early registrations were purchased by Apple, Instagram, Kickstarter, and Rolex, along with the Louvre, Tate, the Centre Pompidou, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Guggenheim. .art domain names can be assigned directly to artworks (rather than to institutions or individuals). This new service of storing and identifying art objects in WHOIS, for which the .art registry received a United States patent in 2020, is called Digital Twin. By negotiating a unique agreement with ICANN,.art integrated into its domain registration forms the option of adding specific description fields. These fields contain information based on the Object ID – a universal art object identification standard developed by J. Paul Getty Trust and adopted by UNESCO, ICOM, and major law enforcement agencies. The standard contains necessary information about an artwork and its owner.