Author Topic: Copyright and monkeys  (Read 967 times)

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Offline Warren Toda

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Copyright and monkeys
« on: July 12, 2017, 09:14 PM »
An update to the long-running case of the British photographer who captured the now-famous "monkey selfie" pictures in 2011. The photographer is virtually penniless since some organizations and companies took control of his monkey photos claiming that either no one owns the copyright or the monkeys own the copyright.


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Offline Warren Toda

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Re: Copyright and monkeys
« Reply #1 on: July 13, 2017, 09:12 PM »
Perhaps not entirely a copyright story and there doesn't appear to be any monkeys involved but here's an interesting news article about an Annie Leibovitz collection that was donated to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in 2013 but has yet to be put on public display.

You need to read the entire article to understand what exactly has happened:

1) A Toronto family or, at least, a company controlled by that family, purchased a large collection of Leibovitz images in 2013 for $4.75M (US) and then immediately donated the collection to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

2) The art gallery then tried to get the collection certified for about $20M (CAD?). The family that donated the images would've received a tax credit based on the certified value rather than the actual purchase price. (It's not uncommon for the purchase price of a piece of art to be less than its appraised value).

3) The Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board refused to certify most of the images and gave the remaining photos a total fair market value of $1.6M (CAD?)

4) Leibovitz has been paid only half of the $4.75M US purchase price. The other half was to be paid after the collection was certified at the hoped-for $20M.


The notable copyright issue is that Leibovitz has maintained copyright of the sold collection and has control over how the images are displayed and marketed.


Photographer in Toronto
info@warrentoda.com

Dominic Chan

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Re: Copyright and monkeys
« Reply #2 on: July 15, 2017, 04:10 PM »
So the bottom line is the photographer/creator/artist and all the middle persons involve are just blood suckers making the money off without doing a thing.