Re: license options for models

It is property owned by a person. You are depicting it or
using it, the
property, and there are valuable property rights associated
with the
animal held by the owner. I have represented several horses
and dogs
(LOL actually the owners as the dog cannot execute the
retainer
agreement).

There are also trademark rights that may at issue if the
animal is
famous and the name may also need to be licensed.


Cordially, 
Connie J. Mableson, Esq. 
Dodge, Anderson, Mableson, 
   Steiner, Jones & Horowitz, Ltd. 
3003 North Central Avenue 
Suite 1800 
Phoenix, Arizona 85012 
Tel. (602) 277-3000 
Fax. (602) 277-7478 
connieazlawyers.com 
www.azlawyers.com 


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-----Original Message-----
From: cc-licenses-bounceslists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:cc-licenses-bounceslists.ibiblio.org] On
Behalf Of James
Grimmelmann
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 12:16 PM
To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts
Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] license options for models

Connie Mableson wrote:
> Greetings All. I have been reading the various posts
for a while now.
> Just wanted to chime in and say "yes a release is
needed for animals."

You learn something new every day.  What would be the basis
for a
lawsuit without a release form for the animal?

James
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Connie Mableson wrote:
> It is property owned by a person. You are depicting it
or using it, the
> property, and there are valuable property rights
associated with the
> animal held by the owner. 

There is no general right to control all depictions of one's
property,
and no general right to enjoy all the value associate with
it.  Trespass
protects against someone physically interfering with
property; copyright
and trademark protect against certain "uses" of
intangible property.  I
could take a picture of your parked car downtown; you
wouldn't have a
property right to stop me.

I was curious whether there was some animal-specific law
here; while
Nimmer and McCarthy would approve of animal rights of
publicity, both of
them assumed that there weren't already such rights.   If
you could
point to a case or statute establishing one, I'd be quite
interested.
It'd make for a good blog post, at the least.

>I have represented several horses and dogs
> (LOL actually the owners as the dog cannot execute the
retainer
> agreement).

In these cases, isn't the owner agreeing to make the animal
available to
be photographed, in exchange for money and for certain
promises about
what will be done with the pictures?  No payment, no photo
session.  If
we're talking about people downstream who come into
possession of the
photographs -- say, through seeing a CC license -- they
wouldn't be
liable on the contract, since they never contracted with the
animal's
owner.

Given that, I'd guess that the animal owner worried about
unauthorized
reuse of pictures would contractually require the
photographer only to
license the pictures in certain specified ways, and possibly
even to
assign the copyright in the photos.  That would bring us
back to the
usual CC license case; licensees can't simply assume that
the licensor
actually has the authority to license the work.

James
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