Copyright Royalty payments for Animals
 

Just saw this article from "The Economist"

It's dated 03.11.2006 - It's the London edition so the date is todays.

In the article, Gregory Colbert, a Canadian film-maker is trying to set up a new system to make people pay a royalty for use of animals.

Next years advertisement spending is estimated to be around 452 billion dollars. Gregory is trying to set up a network that would receive payment for the animals and pay off 99% of the royalties coming in to conservation projects around the world.

The idea for Gregory's system is to get corporations to pay for the right to use a logo on their ads saying they are doing their part to help out animals and that the company is PC. However, even 1% is pretty much a lot of money for Gregory's new venture, don't you think?

Getting back to my topic, I thought the owners of the pets received payment for the use of animals, and some of the larger stars (pets) made royalty payments to the owners...Is this not standard practice? Not that I'll be shooting picts of any animals soon.

i would think that it would be the person or company that owns the animal.

John, what that fellow is proposing is different from animal talent hired for film. Those animals and their handlers get what their contracts specify (I doubt that Bart the Bear got any residuals). What this fellow is trying to do is a unique way to fund raise for conservation - something I endorse.

We see the same things - not necessarily involving actual licensing - on films about peoples, places and actual licensable properties. Many productions already do this for the sake of goodwill. A production about a native people, for example, would be wise to establish good relations with those people either through a local exchange (local employment) or local fee structure (or perhaps outright bribery).

Of course, animals are too polite to demand these things themselves so they have to be fronted by parks, organizations and governments.

The interesting approach is treating what used to be seen as a 'free' or public good but something that must be paid back into.

Perhaps we could see car makers - who take out from the environment - , contribute to the maintenance of an animal whenever they put out a car that uses an animal's name, for example. I wonder, for example, if the Memphis Grizzlies (who used to be the Vancouver Grizzlies) ever donated a cent to a grizzly refuge. For that matter, does any proceeds of "Grizzly Man" make it back to a grizzly organization (I don't know; I don't stick around for the end credits)? One could argue fairly that the exposure itself is good for the grizzlies.

I would think that if this fellow gets far it would be more of an opt in. Studios would like to have that 'certification' so that they can show that they are a contributor, rather than just an exploiter, of what is a common resource that normally does not come with an open price tag. This is now quite common with major industries and is fully justified in the company's bottom line because of PR, because it deflects the negative consequences of bad PR.

I doubt very much any studio would agree to a residual. More like something that comes out of the marketing budget. Independents could make their own decisions, of course, but they are so near the margin already.

I doubt it would be like the required ASPCA certification.

Is the ASPCA certification "REQUIRED"?

It is actually the American Human Association (I did a search).

"The American Humane Association has overseen movie sets since 1940 to make sure animal actors stay safe while portraying heroes, villains, companions, and comedians. American Humane's Film & Television Unit is designated by the Screen Actors Guild as the only animal welfare organization with onset jurisdiction. As such, the Film and TV Unit considers animal safety its primary goal. "

http://www.americanhumane.org/site/P...gename=pa_film

From their pages it does not seem to say that it is required but film productions are urged to get an AHA rating so that they can display the "No animals were hurt ..." disclaimer at the end credits. The AHA also claims that films may have trouble with distributors if this is the case.

http://www.americanhumane.org/site/P...film_producers

Hi Kieth,

I agree on the issue against crulty to animals. And as you state, there are already groups that help animals. However, I was just mentioning that the man will make quite a lot of greens, even at one percent if his idea is a success.

The topic was about royalty payments to the owners or trainers of the animals used in pictures that I had the question about.

I am assuming that the people in charge of the animals gets less royalty then a human but what is the average of payments for pets?