"Monkey Selfie" Erupts into Copyright Battle on Wikipedia

[Alterego-X]

what makes a photo is not the press of a button, it is the circumstance of the photo.

By that logic, if you spend lots of money on a camera, and time setting it, but it breaks down as you try to push the button, and no picture is made, you should still own a copyright over "the circumstances" that you have set up.

What you are saying, sounds very close to what I just said earlier: "of course professional artistic photographers can be very creative, but the creativity is not expressed by the action of taking photogaphs, but by the surrounding behavior"

I get that there can be an artistic intent behind arranging the means of a photograph's taking.

You just draw some very strange conclusions from it, if you think that we can somehow copyright the artistic intent itself, entirely separately from the picture's taking's mechanics. I think we can't, AND the push of the button, which is just a mechanical act shouldn't be copyrightable either.

There can be an artistic intent to set up circumstances behind a great deal of things, from clothing and cooking, to driving and swimming, but if you can set that intent apart from an otherwise utilitarian type of action, then there is no product to be copyrighted.

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.

That's unlikely. People are uploading billions of photos every year, without any plan to benefit from copyrights.

Why would someone go out of his way to delete the one that could make him famous (and for that matter, that's first showing could still be sold to a newspaper for good money)?

Besides, facts can't be copyrighted. At this analogy, you aren't even hiding that the photo is only valuable because of the facts it represents, and not because of what original content an artist has created as an author.

Scientists, (including zoologists), have reported observable natural phebomena for thousands of years, without the expectation of being owed copyright control over the knowledge that these facts exists.

If you manage to exploit the facts in the photo for money, that's one thing, but it doesn't deserve creative protection if you are not being an author.

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

The actual painting, the object, not copyings of the coffee splash's shape.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality

 

[Nowhere Man]

I'm building a rocket to Mars. Who wants to join me?

 

[Grape_Nuts]

Guide to losing almost any dispute/argument:

1) Call your opponent a communist
2) Liken opponent to Hitler and Stalin
3) You've lost

For faster results, start at step 2.

 

[Kuala BangoDango]

Therefore, the public has no good reason to give ANYONE control over the picture's usage.

That's the thing though...the public doesn't need a reason, good or otherwise because the public should have absolutely no say in the matter. It was not the public's camera, it was MY camera.

In this story's case I could understand the photo being public domain if the camera the guy was using was city property or if he and his equipment were being funded by taxpayer dollars but if it was HIS camera then why would the public get to say what happens with any pictures taken on HIS camera? If the camera is owned by his employers (if he's not self-employed) then his employers should get rights to the photo.

If I buy a piece of land in the Rockies and I find a cliff face on my land that wind and water has eroded into the face of Jesus the public does NOT gain ownership of my cliff through some weird form of Imminent Domain just because natural unplanned events created a work of art with my property.

Edit: Why in the world do I keep getting advertisements for my captcha? No, I am NOT gonna type in your brainwashing consumerism propaganda "answer" to why Michellin tires are right for me.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I would given it to Slater on the simple basis of his equipment and his photoshoot, you can't just go rifling through someone's pictures and claim anything that happened accidentally... it's fucking ridiculous.

But then the guy opened his mouth and only fecal matter came out, so... fuck that guy, clearly he isn't fit to interact with human kind any more and should not be rewarded for his failed attempts.

 

[JarinArenos]

I would given it to Slater on the simple basis of his equipment and his photoshoot, you can't just go rifling through someone's pictures and claim anything that happened accidentally... it's fucking ridiculous.

But then the guy opened his mouth and only fecal matter came out, so... fuck that guy, clearly he isn't fit to interact with human kind any more and should not be rewarded for his failed attempts.

Douchebags still deserve protection under the law, regardless of other unrelated issues. Wikimedia is seriously reaching here to try to justify their usage.

 

[Alterego-X]

If I buy a piece of land in the Rockies and I find a cliff face on my land that wind and water has eroded into the face of Jesus the public does NOT gain ownership of my cliff through some weird form of Imminent Domain just because natural unplanned events created a work of art with my property.

That's exactly the kind of twisted thinking I was talking about. We are talking about copyrights, and here you are, comparing it to property ownership.

The question is not whether he should be allowed to keep his camera and the stuff on it, or that otherwise the public should gain it, but whether after he has publicised that stuff, he should be given further authority as well, to censor what Wikipedia and other websites publish.

If he wanted to smash his camera right after the picture was taken, he was free to do so. If he wants to sell it's hard drive to the highest bidder, he's free to do so. If he wanted to print out it's pictures, or upload to the net, free to do so.

If you treat copyright monopolies the same as the ownership of the tools that made the content, you are basically saying that the public should have "absolutely no say in the matter" of how much the public is allowed to freely communicate, or for that matter, how much they are allowed to use THEIR OWN computers and cameras and other tools.

 

[JazzJack2]

In this story's case I could understand the photo being public domain if the camera the guy was using was city property or if he and his equipment were being funded by taxpayer dollars but if it was HIS camera then why would the public get to say what happens with any pictures taken on HIS camera? If the camera is owned by his employers (if he's not self-employed) then his employers should get rights to the photo.

You clearly don't understand anything about copyright law, if I take a photo on someone else's camera I still own the rights to the photo unless agreed otherwise. They aren't suddenly granted ownership of it because it's their camera, that would be nonsensical.

 

[RicoADF]

*SNIP*

Ok so you believe that photos etc should not be copywriten unless it's 'artistic', well how do you prove when somethings artistic or what the intent was? Also what right do others have to take your photos and use them as they like? If you took a photo of say your child (if you had one) would you be ok with a diaper brand taking the photo of them and using it on advertisement without paying you or your permission? That's what copyright is suppose to be about, protecting those that create stuff from having it stolen and sold without the creators being paid (or having the right to say no). It's often abused but a lack of copyright would be abused far more, it's a lessor of 2 evils.

 

[zinho73]

what makes a photo is not the press of a button, it is the circumstance of the photo.

By that logic, if you spend lots of money on a camera, and time setting it, but it breaks down as you try to push the button, and no picture is made, you should still own a copyright over "the circumstances" that you have set up.

What you are saying, sounds very close to what I just said earlier: "of course professional artistic photographers can be very creative, but the creativity is not expressed by the action of taking photogaphs, but by the surrounding behavior"

I get that there can be an artistic intent behind arranging the means of a photograph's taking.

You just draw some very strange conclusions from it, if you think that we can somehow copyright the artistic intent itself, entirely separately from the picture's taking's mechanics. I think we can't, AND the push of the button, which is just a mechanical act shouldn't be copyrightable either.

There can be an artistic intent to set up circumstances behind a great deal of things, from clothing and cooking, to driving and swimming, but if you can set that intent apart from an otherwise utilitarian type of action, then there is no product to be copyrighted.

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.

That's unlikely. People are uploading billions of photos every year, without any plan to benefit from copyrights.

Why would someone go out of his way to delete the one that could make him famous (and for that matter, that's first showing could still be sold to a newspaper for good money)?

Besides, facts can't be copyrighted. At this analogy, you aren't even hiding that the photo is only valuable because of the facts it represents, and not because of what original content an artist has created as an author.

Scientists, (including zoologists), have reported observable natural phebomena for thousands of years, without the expectation of being owed copyright control over the knowledge that these facts exists.

If you manage to exploit the facts in the photo for money, that's one thing, but it doesn't deserve creative protection if you are not being an author.

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

The actual painting, the object, not copyings of the coffee splash's shape.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality

Ok, I don't have time for those kind of literal discussions, but I will try to be quick:
What makes the value of the photo is the circumstance: the monkey taking the photo adds much more value than a man taking it. A sad child is one thing - a sad child after a train disaster is another completely different. No one is talking about copyrighting circumstances.

The bigfoot does not exist. This is called hyperbole, derived from the example given. You do not see professional photographers releasing their photos left to right without compensation. A professional that takes a great photo by accident might think twice before releasing if he knows he is not entitled to the copyright.

About the coffee - if I sell the painting the money is still mine. The monkey is free to take other photos of himself, in his own time, with his own equipment and charge whatever he wants from those, as the coffee guy is free to sell the shape of his spill.

If one photo can be artistic, all of them can. Some are just better than others.

There are several modern artists that make installations in which the public participates and contribute to the end result. Those are still the artist work.

And... Ah, you know what? I agree with you.

 

[persephone]

I think that attempting to disown a photographer from the fruits of their labours because they didn't physically press the button that took the shot is disingenuous and could set a troubling precedent for all photographers that employ automatic or remote recording techniques.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind if ALL photographs would be Public Domain.

I'm sure that there are photographers who put a lot of work into their content, but the raw action of photography itself, is *not* a creative process, compared to how even the shittiest novel's writing, or the shittiest video game's coding, is.

With billions of photographs taken all the time all around the world, and making up a large part of our online communication as they can be duplicated with a single copy+paste, it is simple not realistic to treat them as anything else than pieces of communication, the simple and obvious recording of facts with no intent at original creation.

If some people want to pursue it on an artistic level, that's all right. Some people also design cloths, or invent recipes on an artistic level too. And they are getting by without those being copyrightable.

The "art of photography" is not some endangered activity that needs massive regulatory protection and financial incentivization, any more than "the art of cooking" is.

Taking quality photographs is a lot of work, especially of exotic locales or creatures. There's extremely expensive equipment, and a lot of invested time. So yeah, they kinda *do* need financial incentivization and protection, otherwise no one's going to be able to afford to take good quality photographs. The ease with which a photograph can be stolen makes it easy to think that it's also easy to create, but it's really, really not.

I also want to point out that people *do* copyright clothing designs and recipes. What do you think a brand label or a designer line is? Or celebrity cookbooks?

 

[Kuala BangoDango]

In this story's case I could understand the photo being public domain if the camera the guy was using was city property or if he and his equipment were being funded by taxpayer dollars but if it was HIS camera then why would the public get to say what happens with any pictures taken on HIS camera? If the camera is owned by his employers (if he's not self-employed) then his employers should get rights to the photo.

You clearly don't understand anything about copyright law, if I take a photo on someone else's camera I still own the rights to the photo unless agreed otherwise. They aren't suddenly granted ownership of it because it's their camera, that would be nonsensical.

And you clearly don't understand we're not talking about YOU (or indeed any person) taking a photo with another persons camera. We're talking about an animal (or in some of the other examples, an inanimate object such as a rock) taking the picture. Since the animal or rock cannot own the copyright...at least as far as I know, I may be wrong...why should the copyright revert to the general public and NOT to the person providing the camera and setting up the photographic situation? It defies logic.

Then again, the world today isn't fond of using logic, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised if indeed the public DOES get to own the photo if I drop my camera and it bounces against a rock thus taking a picture. Perhaps if I pick my camera back up and delete the photo I should turn myself in to the police for destruction of public property.

 

[DoctorM]

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.

Not entirely true. If a company sends a photographer to shoot pictures, like a newspaper, that company holds the copyright, not the photographer. It's not a 'who pushed the button' thing. What if the camera wasn't activated by the button?

What if the photographer used a motion sensor? Would you still argue 'the monkey pushed the button' and the photographer lost the rights to the public domain?

Beides, your argument is flawed. The monkey can't hold a copyright because it is not a human being. That doesn't mean 'monkey rights are transferred to the public domain.' That would be a stupid copyright law.

It means the photograph occurred because of a natural phenomenon, accident or act of god. That still makes it the property of the person who owns the equipment and set up the situation for the photograph to occur.

The Wiki chaps just don't want to take a beating so they need some argument that they didn't violate a copyright. It's a bad argument, but they needed to make one.

 

[Super Cyborg]

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.

Not entirely true. If a company sends a photographer to shoot pictures, like a newspaper, that company holds the copyright, not the photographer. It's not a 'who pushed the button' thing. What if the camera wasn't activated by the button?

What if the photographer used a motion sensor? Would you still argue 'the monkey pushed the button' and the photographer lost the rights to the public domain?

Beides, your argument is flawed. The monkey can't hold a copyright because it is not a human being. That doesn't mean 'monkey rights are transferred to the public domain.' That would be a stupid copyright law.

It means the photograph occurred because of a natural phenomenon, accident or act of god. That still makes it the property of the person who owns the equipment and set up the situation for the photograph to occur.

The Wiki chaps just don't want to take a beating so they need some argument that they didn't violate a copyright. It's a bad argument, but they needed to make one.

Don't know what happened, but I wasn't the one who said that. Below is the one who actually posted the quote.

Spoiler

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.

The one below is what I posted.

Spoiler

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?

So you'll want to fix that if you can. I agree fully with you. The fact that he took time to go out there and get the picture taken makes it his. The fact that it was his equipment that he bought makes it his. The only thing I'm uncertain about is if the damages are really that high, because I don't know how one photo would cost that much for just being used on a page on the internet.

 

[Alterego-X]

Ok so you believe that photos etc should not be copywriten unless it's 'artistic', well how do you prove when somethings artistic or what the intent was?

The same way as whether a swimming style is artistic enough, a meal is artistic enough, or a cloth is artistic enough.

That is, not at all. I agree with the point so far, that we can't draw a clear line between mundane and artistic usage of these actions, therefore the choice is between regulating the whole practical action as if it were artistic self-expression, or leaving the whole thing outside the realm of copyrights.


I would rather not live in a world where every swimming move is copyrighted, on the off chance that some water ballet moves were designed with professional artistic intent.

Likewise, I would rather not censor wikipedia (and the internet in general), by making every common selfie, landscape, official record, and family album copyrighted, on the off chance that some of them are also made with professional artistic intent.

Also what right do others have to take your photos and use them as they like?

Freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of expression.

Ultimately, no matter how you phrase it, "taking one's photos" and repeating them, is communication. Not that this makes it an absolute, inalienable, uninfringible right either, but it does have a a cause to be cherished. I could see why you wouldn't want people to freely "communicate" the ones and zeroes that Guardians of the Galaxy consists of, but that's a practical, efficient, and necessary limitation on freedom of communication for our mutual long term benefit.

Flooding the Internet with billions of pictures, the second simplest form of communication right after typing, and then forbidding them to be repeated, is a masively impractical feat with minimal potential returns.

If you took a photo of say your child (if you had one) would you be ok with a diaper brand taking the photo of them and using it on advertisement without paying you or your permission? That's what copyright is suppose to be about, protecting those that create stuff from having it stolen and sold without the creators being paid (or having the right to say no). It's often abused but a lack of copyright would be abused far more, it's a lessor of 2 evils.

Who is being "abused" in your example?

Families are taking pictures of babies for free all the time, it's hardly an art form that would die without the possibility of incentivization. So what exactly is being "stolen", from me?

Abuses of copyright are not coincidential, they all originate from the logic that you just outlined here: Copyright holders cry "abuse" and "stealing", merely because their hypothetical absolute control is limited, rather than by pointing out how society would be better off with giving that control to them. By asking "what rights do others have to take my content", instead of "what rights do I have to restrict the public's free communication?".

Copyrights in general can be useful, but copyrighting photographs is one example where the only justifications for it are based in the same mentality that results in abusive copyrights. Ownership for ownership's sake, and censorship for ownership's sake being inherently deserved unless otherwise noted, etc.

 

[Alterego-X]

I also want to point out that people *do* copyright clothing designs and recipes. What do you think a brand label or a designer line is?

A trademark, which has nothing to do with creativity. You can trademark any common word, color, sound, or other label, solely because it is commonly identified with your product (creative or otherwise). It's an anti-fraud law, not a copyright.

Or celebrity cookbooks?

Books can be copyrighted, meals can't. You are not forbidden to prepare a food just because it was invented by someone.

And yes, there are professional chefs who spend quite a lot of time money and effort inventing new recipes. That afterwards other people can use those, doesn't seem to result in no one doing that. Why do you think that it would still happen with photographs?

Photographers can get money from getting commissioned by a magazine, from crowdfunding a project, some high art types can organize gallery presentations and sell "originals", etc. Stopping Wikipedia from using digital copies as article demonstration, doesn't seem to cut into any of these.

 

[VaporWare]

To be honest, while this is hilarious and even presents an interesting quandary on the subject of creative ownership his apparent rapid invocations of communism, Hitler, Stalin, and railing against Wikipedia kind of make me wonder if this isn't going to turn up as a hoax on Cracked's periodic lists of horse-puckey articles that fooled the media this weekend.

I'll opine here that if cinematography is an art, so is photography. Not all products of any technique are necessarily artistic in nature or intent, however. Merely picking up a camera and snapping a shot doesn't necessarily give you art, though it may incidentally result in a very nice shot.

But copyright isn't necessarily about art, it's about the ownership of information. It's about who has the right to distribute and profit from the use of that information. If we were to follow the intent of that, then we start at the monkey who created the information (the selfie) and work from there. We've established that the monkey has no rights under human law, so one must either assume that no-one holds the copyright (as Wikipedia did when they hosted the image), or that the rights revert to the human.

Now, the human had an opportunity to claim the copyright before the image ever made it into the wild. He had the camera, after all, and was under no obligation or compulsion to post those images anywhere. I will opine here that if he had wanted to establish a copyright, he should have done so clearly before they got out. It currently appears that he did not do any such thing, and so it should come as no surprise that an organization reliant on public domain media acquired and utilized them in the interim.

The images went viral before the Wikimedia Foundation acquired them. They are not at fault for any misconception nor for publicizing the picture in the first place, and assailing them with libel and slanderous allegations comparing them to infamous dictators and unpopular politics reads like a rather disingenuous attempt to deflect the issue from his own irresponsible handling of the picture in question.

At this point, his copyright is effectively doomed. Whether or not it is determined that he has the right to distribute and profit from the image, it is already distributed and can no longer be meaningfully profited from, and that's his fault for letting it off his camera before he was ready to control it.

 

[joshuaayt]

It was his equipment and his trip to Indonesia. Why is the fact that a monkey took the photo changing the facts? If the camera was motion activated, or set on a timer, no one would question his ownership.

Is the argument that the photos belong to the monkey? Should we get in contact with the monkey's lawyers?

All this said, the guy who took the photos sounds like a complete loon, so. I guess my stance is hypothetical at best, because I really don't care about his photos.

 

[Alterego-X]

But copyright isn't necessarily about art, it's about the ownership of information. It's about who has the right to distribute and profit from the use of that information.

The U.S. constitution is clear that copyright is given "to Promote the Progress of Science and Useful Arts".

To control information, is the means through which the copyrights are regulated, but not their intent.

In and of itself, information is defined as "the act of a message being conveyed". That is, communication. When you are talking about "information ownership", you are fundmantally talking about ownership over what other people are allowed to speak.

Such an "ownership" should be given away extremely carefully, with very good justifications, rather than just assuming that as much information should be owned by someone as possible, based on strained claims to possible interests.

It was his equipment and his trip to Indonesia. Why is the fact that a monkey took the photo changing the facts?

It isn't changing the facts, it's still his equipment, and still his trip. No one has taken those from him. The question is why he should ALSO be given control over a photo he didn't make.

If the camera was motion activated, or set on a timer, no one would question his ownership.

That depends on the treshold of originality [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality]

Copyrights are gained by creating "works of authorship that possess at least some minimal degree of creativity". Certain camera setups can be claimed to be creatively inspired, but for example automated security camera recordings would be heavily debatable.

Is the argument that the photos belong to the monkey? Should we get in contact with the monkey's lawyers?

The argument is that since monkeys can't be authors, the photos are not works of authorship, but more like a natural phenomena, a fact. Like if an interestingly shaped mold grows on your house's outer wall. You still own the wall itself, but why should anyone own that shape? Why is it beneficial, to let you censor that shape's appearance on the Internet, just because it first grew on your wall? You are not the author of a creative work, there are no useful arts to be progressed by rewarding you for that shape's existence.

 

[persephone]

I also want to point out that people *do* copyright clothing designs and recipes. What do you think a brand label or a designer line is?

A trademark, which has nothing to do with creativity. You can trademark any common word, color, sound, or other label, solely because it is commonly identified with your product (creative or otherwise). It's an anti-fraud law, not a copyright.

Or celebrity cookbooks?

Books can be copyrighted, meals can't. You are not forbidden to prepare a food just because it was invented by someone.

And yes, there are professional chefs who spend quite a lot of time money and effort inventing new recipes. That afterwards other people can use those, doesn't seem to result in no one doing that. Why do you think that it would still happen with photographs?

Photographers can get money from getting commissioned by a magazine, from crowdfunding a project, some high art types can organize gallery presentations and sell "originals", etc. Stopping Wikipedia from using digital copies as article demonstration, doesn't seem to cut into any of these.

I guess I don't understand the difference between a trademark and a copyright, then.

As to the question at hand, I can see both sides of the issue. I'd have to be more familiar with copyright law to really put my two cents in. But I do feel for the potential lost revenue for this guy, if only because he did sink a lot of time and money into the trip that yielded the "selfie."