Someone chopped up 2001: A Space Odyssey into 569 gifs

As you might’ve guessed, we love a good gif here at TNW. Heck, our logo has one built-in (just go and hover your mouse over it to see).

But what happens when you turn an entire film into a series of 569 gifs and post them all in order on to Giphy? That’s precisely what Jean-Baptiste Henri Franck Cyrille Marie Le Divelec decided to do with sci-fi epic, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick’s magnus opus.

But there’s method to this seeming gif madness. Le Divelec is using 2001: A gif odyssey to start a debate about the legal loop hole gifs enjoy when it comes to replicating your favorite films and TV.

While the vast majority of the animated images use copyrighted content, they fall under the ‘Fair Use‘ policy giving gif lovers carte blanche to copy content and distribute it freely.

The 💜 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

But, Le Divelec is trying to argue, is there a point where gifs can no longer hide under Fair Use?

Last year, Twitter suspended SBNation and Deadspin for making gifs from live games – so a line exists, but appears to be applied differently depending on who, when and what content the gif makers are creating.

The below video explains the concept behind the experiment.

“I am trying to see where we can go in GIF-making while keeping gif limitations. The fact that gifs are soundless or contain only 256 colors gives me a little “buffer” against some pure copyright infringement arguments,” Le Divelec told The Creators Project.

We predict this will disappear sooner rather than later. But, if you’re struggling to stay entertained – or want to experience the sparse space-scapes of Kubrick’s creation – there’s subtitles on each gif so you could, in theory, watch the whole film from start to finish.