"Monkey Selfie" Erupts into Copyright Battle on Wikipedia

[fletch_talon]

His equipment, his film, he probably developed the photo himself, and he paid all the expenses. No other human being was involved. It's actually pretty clear cut.

If you put a film plate out and radiation exposes it in an interesting pattern when you develop the photo, the photo isn't public domain. Neither is this.

Wikimedia is just trying to cover its butt, and sounding stupid in the process.

Royalties from all commercial sites, and physical publications that use the picture. Instead of a fat load of nothing for his work.

Doubt that. Wikipedia, with which this started, is not a commercial site, they don't pay royalties for anything, but use Public Domain and Fair Use pictures, yet the whole thing started with him wanting to take it down from there.

And they posted his image as public domain without his consent(in the wikimedia commons), essentially denying him royalties for it in the process, he hasn't released it as public domain, it was basically pirated into public domain by wikipedia. It's what this is all about. Royalties.

The law apparently states that the copyright holder is the person who took the photo. The monkey took the photo. The monkey has no rights to property. This doesn't mean that the rights magically transfer to the nearest human. Regardless of who owned the equipment or developed the pictures, the law specifies none of these matter.
The picture is in the public domain because there is no copyright holder. This is my understanding of the matter, Wiki are acting in accordance with an interpretation of the law, and from what I've heard it seems to be a correct interpretation.

 

[Super Cyborg]

First few things that came to my mind

Hands off the camera you damn dirty ape
Stop monkeying around with the law
Forget about what 1000 monkeys at a type writer can produce, look what one monkey did with a camera.

Did he have an original place he had the pictures, that said it may not be copied without permission? Because if he did, then he has a case. I am a bit mixed on pictures being copy righted, at least when taking pictures of real life. On the one hand, people with a camera can take a picture of the same scene and it would be the same. When someone takes a specific shot though, making sure that there are certain elements present, that takes skill and patience to have it set up, and those are scenes that one won't just get by going to that area. The only other question is where is he getting the money they owe him from, because that sounds like a lot for just one picture?

 

[Cerebrawl]

His equipment, his film, he probably developed the photo himself, and he paid all the expenses. No other human being was involved. It's actually pretty clear cut.

If you put a film plate out and radiation exposes it in an interesting pattern when you develop the photo, the photo isn't public domain. Neither is this.

Wikimedia is just trying to cover its butt, and sounding stupid in the process.

Royalties from all commercial sites, and physical publications that use the picture. Instead of a fat load of nothing for his work.

Doubt that. Wikipedia, with which this started, is not a commercial site, they don't pay royalties for anything, but use Public Domain and Fair Use pictures, yet the whole thing started with him wanting to take it down from there.

And they posted his image as public domain without his consent(in the wikimedia commons), essentially denying him royalties for it in the process, he hasn't released it as public domain, it was basically pirated into public domain by wikipedia. It's what this is all about. Royalties.

The law apparently states that the copyright holder is the person who took the photo. The monkey took the photo. The monkey has no rights to property. This doesn't mean that the rights magically transfer to the nearest human. Regardless of who owned the equipment or developed the pictures, the law specifies none of these matter.
The picture is in the public domain because there is no copyright holder. This is my understanding of the matter, Wiki are acting in accordance with an interpretation of the law, and from what I've heard it seems to be a correct interpretation.

It's an analoguous situation to photographers who set up wildlife camera traps, there's no human pushing a button, but it's the person setting it up who owns the rights to the picture. The monkey being a non-person basically means that all the work is done by the human who orchestrated it, from a legal standpoint.

 

[Pharsalus]

Pretty crummy for that guy though, that camera must cost a ton, he lets a monkey borrow it, monkey takes a hot pic and gets screws the guy out of making money for doing his job. Scumbag Monkey.

 

[templar1138a]

*shakes head slowly* Godwin's law has been brought up already, but for fuck's sake. This guy is pathetic.

Dear Humanity: Stop finding new ways to lower my opinion of you.

 

[Devieus]

This probably wouldn't be a big deal if it was a human in that shot that took a selfie with someone else's camera, then all of a sudden it's clear as day, but move around semantics and everything's going bananas.

 

[Soulrender95]

Ok David Slater has probably gone a bit over the deep end with his analogies but obviously he has a lawyer who thinks he has a case as owner of the equipment as the alleged Monkey is a non-person, so either the courts have to decide the alleged Monkey is a person in the eyes of the law and therefore the alleged monkey is owed money or that the picture belongs to David as the owner of the equipment.

Win or lose though David Slater's reputation is most likely going to suffer because of his changing story and wild accusations.

 

[andago]

*shakes head slowly* Godwin's law has been brought up already, but for fuck's sake. This guy is pathetic.

Dear Humanity: Stop finding new ways to lower my opinion of you.

Dear Templar,

I have informed humanity of your opinions. They don't seem to care.

Superlatives and ugly political opinions aside, I'm not sure why someone annoyed that has lost out on a potential sum of money from what he does as a career is considered pathetic, whether or not he is proven right.

 

[Alterego-X]

in practice any photo on the internet is public domain. nobody cares about copyright when taking image of google and noone can really stop anyone from using it legally. while technically coypright exist on those images, in practice it does not really work. heck, my avatar is probably copyrighted somewhere, but it probably changed hands so many times noone could trace back the original author.

So is mine.

In practice they are public domain, 99.999% of the time, until some random guy decides to make Wikipedia's service more difficult, or a politician tries to censor an inconvinient photograph on the account that he technically owns the copyright, or automatic image recognition systems start deleting ordinary forum posts just like contentID deletes youtube videos.

It's one of those fields where it's extremely clear that copyrights are not serving creativity at all, (since photographers don't really hhave a reasonable model for limiting access to digital pictures), it's just mssing with public communication for the hell of it.

 

[Kuala BangoDango]

In my view the rights to the photo should revert to the owner of the camera.

If I'm hiking and drop my camera on a rock which hits the button, taking a rare photo of Bigfoot in the distance, is it the rock that's considered the photographer? Is my picture public domain just because circumstance made my camera bang into another object?

Or, to put it another way, if the photographer/artist automatically has the rights to the picture even if the equipment used belongs to someone else then why do artists always have to have contracts specifically stating they retain the rights when someone commissions them to do art? When the old lady in Spain tried to restore her church's old painting of Jesus and she botched it (if anyone remembers that news event) does that mean the painting reverted to her ownership?

If a thief steals my camera and takes a photo that ends up becoming famous does the thief get the rights to the photo taken by MY camera?

 

[Alterego-X]

Pretty crummy for that guy though, that camera must cost a ton, he lets a monkey borrow it, monkey takes a hot pic and gets screws the guy out of making money for doing his job. Scumbag Monkey.

You might as well say that camera manufacturers should own every copyright, because producing the cameras costs a ton, they let people buy them and use them, and then they get screwed out of making money. Scumbag artists.

You are getting copyrights for doing creative work, not for indirectly contributing to the existence of creative work. This guy already got plenty of copyrights for the photographs he has actually taken.

 

[Alterego-X]

In my view the rights to the photo should revert to the owner of the camera.

If I'm hiking and drop my camera on a rock which hits the button, taking a rare photo of Bigfoot in the distance, is it the rock that's considered the photographer? Is my picture public domain just because circumstance made my camera bang into another object?

The reason why copyright exists, is to "promote to progress of science and useful arts".

Dropping your camera on a rock while being serendipitously close to Bigfoot, is not a creative process that can be incentivized and turned into a profesional industry. Therefore, the public has no good reason to give ANYONE control over the picture's usage.

I think it's pretty twisted, that we think of information monopolies as something that should inherently be owned by someone just for the sake of ownership, rather than as a limitation of public communication, a censorship that we tolerate in certain forms because of it's potentially beneficial cultural effects.

That's the reason why we end up with 100+ year long copyrights, content ID takedowns, Apple owning the rounded rectangle, game modders getting C&D letters, and entire countries pretty much being forbidden to watch anime.

 

[EvolutionKills]

I was kind of up in the air, then the photographer lost me when he went full Godwin...

 

[LaoJim]

Not going to wade in on the legal side of things however,

There's a lovely poetic justice to this. The photos I've seen are good, but no better than professional photographers working for zoos or nature reserves take every day. The unique selling point which gives them any substantial value they have is that they are "selfies" take by the primate themselves. While I think a judge probably would find that they did in fact belong to the photographer (maybe IANAL), you've got to laugh at him being called out on the very cutesy media bullshit angle he was trying to peddle.

The selfie thing is starting to get out of hand. In my town the council have set up lots of abstract art statues and are running a competition for people to send in the best selfie of themselves in front of the statues. It did occur to me that if you are seaching for the best photograph, probably the best thing to do is to let someone else take the photo...

So in conclusion, I have selfies. However it does prove the old rule that most things in life are improved by adding the word "monkey" in front of them.

 

[AstaresPanda]

The guy is a greedy sack of shit. SIMPLE.Its pricks like this that would have us paying for the air that a tree may or may not have produced oxygen that happend to be on his side of the garden. Fuuuuck Offff. Mean while Gaza is still geting fucked, ebola is a thing and this guy is crying about a photo that he did not take and was simply a random animal thing. I say again Greedy fuck.

 

[zinho73]

Even if the photo was accidental, it was taking with his equipment while he was working. The photo would not exist without the photographer direct presence in the place. The photo belongs to the guy. It is kind of a underhanded move taking hold of the photo.

If no copyright is owned, it means a lot of strange things, really:

1. If I see a photo shoot happening around my house I could go there, shove the photographer to the side and take a bunch of photos of the models (and will have copyright on them).

2. If an accident happens that results in a great photo, the photographer won't release it because he will not have the copyright and we have one less interesting picture to look at.

3. If someone accidentally bumps or touches the camera trigger, he now owns the photo.

C'mon, people. The argument here is that the monkey is the photographer and animals cannot have copyrights. At the very least, they are screwing the monkey.

And to the guy who thinks photos shouldn't have copyright: what makes a photo is not the press of a button, it is the circumstance of the photo. Every photo is as unique as any painting (and even more difficult to reproduce in some cases, because a lot of photos have a context unique in History). There are good and bad photos and good and bad art in any form, but there is always someone responsible for the final product.

My opinion: It is a cooperative effort, but the guy has merit and have right to the copyright claims.

 

[zinho73]

In my view the rights to the photo should revert to the owner of the camera.

If I'm hiking and drop my camera on a rock which hits the button, taking a rare photo of Bigfoot in the distance, is it the rock that's considered the photographer? Is my picture public domain just because circumstance made my camera bang into another object?

The reason why copyright exists, is to "promote to progress of science and useful arts".

Dropping your camera on a rock while being serendipitously close to Bigfoot, is not a creative process that can be incentivized and turned into a profesional industry. Therefore, the public has no good reason to give ANYONE control over the picture's usage.

I think it's pretty twisted, that we think of information monopolies as something that should inherently be owned by someone just for the sake of ownership, rather than as a limitation of public communication, a censorship that we tolerate in certain forms because of it's potentially beneficial cultural effects.

That's the reason why we end up with 100+ year long copyrights, content ID takedowns, Apple owning the rounded rectangle, game modders getting C&D letters, and entire countries pretty much being forbidden to watch anime.

If the guy ho drooped the camera does not own the copyright of the photo, chances are we will never have proof of the Bigfoot existence, because he won't release it.

If someone spills coffee in a paint making the paint somehow more valuable (because people are crazy), the painter still owns the paint.

 

[zinho73]

The guy is a greedy sack of shit. SIMPLE.Its pricks like this that would have us paying for the air that a tree may or may not have produced oxygen that happend to be on his side of the garden. Fuuuuck Offff. Mean while Gaza is still geting fucked, ebola is a thing and this guy is crying about a photo that he did not take and was simply a random animal thing. I say again Greedy fuck.

I think it is way more greedy to take possession of something you didn't produce for free because of some legal loophole.
You want to use the picture.
The guy who released the picture to the world (in good will) is right there.
Use common sense and cut a deal with him.

Granted, the photographer looks a bit lost on the issue (changing histories and so on), but he owns the photo, not the monkey. (that's the wikimedia argument: the monkey is the photographer, but since he cannot legally own the photo, we can use it. If the camera had fallen to the ground, the rock would be the photographer. Don't you think this is absurd?)

 

[144_v1legacy]

It's unfortunate that Slater put both of his feet into his mouth, when he could have made a reasonable argument. There have been some in his favor, but his rancid opinions read like drunk tweets, and fewer people generally side with the guy making the Hitler comparisons. The picture's existence was certainly facilitated by Slater.

On the other hand, the only reason anyone cares about his picture is because people saw it. And they saw it for free. There was no way he would've made money for this (of the scale he claims) without a lawsuit involved.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

"It's potentially being run by people with political agendas"

You mean like everything ever?

I don't know if he's entitled to copyright, but goddamn this guy is a drama queen.

From another viewpoint it's the camera manufacturer who puts in the most work to design and build a camera, but clearly they don't own the copyright to every image taken by one of their cameras. Arguably the designer and manufacturer does all the hard work before a photographer uses one to simply take a picture.

This does open the way for a new promotional campaign for them though.

"So easy to use, a MONKEY CAN USE IT!"