Annie Leibovitz, the well known celebrity photographer for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair, has recently pawned her life’s work of copyrights to all of her photographs in order to receive a loan from Art Capital Group, a NY-based lender, to pay off over $16M in debts. The loan was first reported by The New York Times, which went on to describe the work of the Art Capital Group and other lenders that do so on the collateralization of artwork and photography. According to the article, Leibovitz “essentially pawned every snap of the shutter she had made or will make until the loans are paid off.”
And there you have it. Intellectual property financing at its most fundamental level.
Ian McClure is a former corporate & securities and intellectual property law attorney with 
Trevor M. Blum is a former Associate in the Chicago-based, valuation practice group of Ocean Tomo, LLC., an intellectual property (IP) consultancy. Additionally, he provided instrumental research support to Intellectual Property Exchange International, Inc., an IP exchange start-up. Trevor holds a B.S. from Indiana University and is currently an MBA candidate at the University of Cambridge, focusing on international business and finance. His interests also include entrepreneurship, economics, and informational visualization. He enjoys running and cycling in his free time. Trevor seeks to bring a transnational business perspective to the blog. 
One Comment, Comment or Ping
Reply to “Annie Leibovitz Uses Copyrights to Life’s Work as Collateral to Secure Loan with Art Capital Group”