PETA vs. Big Bird

I especially enjoy PETA’s Animal Times, “the magazine that speaks up for animals,’’ where celebrities are judged not on their popularity, or acting ability, but on their kindness to animals. PETA-approved goddesses include Eva Mendes and Pamela Anderson. Longtime animal activist Bob Barker fits in somewhere between God the Father and the Holy Spirit.

It was from Animal Times that I learned of PETA’s ongoing legal war against the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and its affiliates, including WGBH in Boston. In filings before the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission, PETA alleges that the stations violated the terms of their noncommercial broadcast licenses by allowing the American Egg Board to “unlawfully embed . . . inappropriate commercial messages’’ into the children’s program “Sesame Street.’’

Here is what happened, per the filings: PETA accuses “Sesame Street’’ and PBS of buying into the Egg Board’s cynical “Good Egg Project,’’ “an effort by the egg industry to rebrand a tainted commodity by convincing consumers that egg producers are committed to ensuring that all hens live in a ‘humane and comfortable environment.’ ’’ The Egg Board crowed about its sponsorship of “Sesame Street,’’ which aired a segment depicting free-range hens laying eggs in “an old-fashioned chicken coop, where chickens are able to lay their eggs in old-fashioned nest boxes that assure them the necessary comfort and privacy.’’

In real life, PETA asserts, “a typical laying hen never gets to see a single blade of grass, nor is she permitted to engage in basic instinctive behaviors, such as flapping her wings, resting on a perch, or laying her eggs in a quiet spot where she feels safe.’’ They add that “commercial laying hens have parts of their beaks amputated with a hot blade without anesthesia and the wounded stump is acutely (and often chronically) painful and sometimes bleeds for weeks.’’

Public broadcasting worthies would know this if they watched their own network. “Food, Inc.,’’ a scathing indictment of factory farming, aired on ’GBH just two weeks ago.

The FTC rebuffed PETA’s claim, saying the Department of Agriculture regulates the Egg Board. Neither PBS nor FCC staff have yet filed any papers in connection with the PETA complaint there. In a prepared statement, a PBS spokeswoman said “PBS has strict program funding standards and practices in place to ensure the independence and noncommercial status of public television. These guidelines make it clear that no program underwriter is permitted to have an editorial role in program content. Sesame Workshop has successfully worked within these guidelines for many years.’’ WGBH declined to comment.

Where are these photos from? They belong to the Child-iana at Harvard’s Schlesinger Library, and are being marketed by entrepreneur Terrie Bloom and her Wellesley-based company, i-concepts. Bloom works only with nonprofits, merchandising items that a library or museum might not have thought to monetize. “Nonprofits generate revenue from operations and philanthropy, but in many cases they have commercial assets that are not exploited because that is not part of their mission,’’ Bloom explains. “We are a black box into which they put their images, and hopefully out of which they get some revenue.’’

One of Bloom’s chief money-spinners can be found at Concourse A inside Fenway Park. Larry Lucchino agreed to let the Boston Public Library market copies of some vintage Red Sox prints from four different collections devoted to the Sox, and they are for sale at every home game. “We want to get these materials out of the institutional walls and make them available to as many people as want to enjoy them,’’ says Bloom.

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.