Pay the animals like you pay the actors

June 5, 2007 3:21 AM

Animal Copyright Foundation (youtube presentation and clip from Ashes and Snow film). Talented photographer Gregory Colbert has made a proposal to get 1% off ad campaigns using animals as a "copyright tribute" for their image, to fund environment preservation projects around the world. More in this Economist article (premium content).
posted by dabitch (3 comments total)

A great innovative idea - that will be killed by the opponents of copyright who will trot out their tired, old, unimaginative arguments that extending copyright to animals will not "promote progress" because it won't result in any new species; they will wail that the copyright term has already expired (and should never be extended); they will whine that the public's right to animals' images is more important than the animals' right to itself; and they will throw childish temper tanrums when the ACF goes after internet users for infringement. Why pay animals when you don't believe in paying actors and other artists?

I wholly support the idea - but 5% would be a more reasonable royalty rate - 1% is lipservice.
posted by three blind mice at 4:17 AM on June 5, 2007

Double.

(and please use the standard youtube url as otherwise the MetaFilter in-page youtube viewer doesn't work.)
posted by Rhomboid at 4:41 AM on June 5, 2007

Archaea will claim prior art.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:18 AM on June 5, 2007