If there was a grand prize for “Most Work Carried out to Show a Level” (and “Fanciest Identify Ever”) Jean-Baptiste Henri Franck Cyrille Marie Le Divelec can be a contender. For 2001: A Gif Odyssey, the advert company creator painstakingly chopped Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Area Odyssey into 569 tiny GIFs to seek out the breaking level of the so-referred to as truthful use doctrine. Truthful use, as a reminder, is a authorized principal that permits individuals to make use of copyrighted materials for commentary, criticism, information reporting, scholarship or analysis. On the similar time, it additionally serves as an “affirmative protection” to guard artists.

A courtroom just lately dominated that creators should affirm truthful use earlier than sending takedown notices, however GIFs are usually too brief to hassle anybody. Nevertheless, rights holders just like the NFL have just lately tried to shut down GIFs posted on Twitter by Deadspin and others. Le Divelec made it technically attainable view 2001, albeit in a particularly inefficient means. Individually, every GIF would arguably match into truthful use as criticism, however what about all 569 as an entire? Within the trailer under, Le Divelec asks, “Will this web page get shut down? Will the truthful use doctrine prevail? Will it break the web? Solely time will inform.”

For now, the GIFs are mute (with subtitles) and hosted on Giphy, however Le Divelec hopes to create his personal website and add the rating, which is freed from any copyright. He informed The Creators Challenge that his professional utilization protection rests on inventive freedom. “I’m making an attempt to see the place we will go in GIF-making whereas retaining GIF limitations. The truth that GIFs are soundless or include solely 256 colours provides me a bit of ‘buffer’ towards some pure copyright infringement arguments.”