OT: Monkey business

[single317dad]

http://myfox8.com/2014/08/06/wikimedia-refuses-to-remove-animal-selfie-because-monkey-owns-the-copyright/

http://myfox8.com/2014/08/06/wikimedia-refuses-to-remove-animal-selfie-because-monkey-owns-the-copyright/

 

[TigerD]

That will be an interesting case to watch.

DC

 

[quincy]

http://myfox8.com/2014/08/06/wikimedia-refuses-to-remove-animal-selfie-because-monkey-owns-the-copyright/

http://myfox8.com/2014/08/06/wikimedia-refuses-to-remove-animal-selfie-because-monkey-owns-the-copyright/

The macaque's photo is good.

I think David Slater is going to have a difficult time trying to win any legal argument that he owns the copyright in the monkey's photo. The photo was rightly placed in the public domain.

There have been in the past, and there currently are, several animal artists, and the works of art these animals create can fetch quite a bit of money. These animals do not hold copyrights in the works they create because copyright laws do not apply to animals. The major difference between these animal artists and the wild monkey that used Slater's camera, however, is that these other animal artists are owned by people who or entities that have the ability to control the sales of the artwork, and then use the money that is generated from the sales for their own benefit.

Zoos benefit from the sales of paintings created by their orangutans and chimpanzees and elephants and seals. The horse Cholla has had its paintings sold and the proceeds go to Cholla's owners. The National Elephant Institute gets additional funding for the Institute by selling the paintings made by its elephants.

If David Slater modified the monkey's photo in an original and creative way, he could potentially gain copyrights in the altered version of the monkey's public domain work.

 

[FlyingRon]

It this is under US law (the article mentions Indonesia and an apparently British photographer), the animal is NOT an entity that can have rights (copyright or otherwise). The argument is then whether the Slater exerted some creative influence over the generation of the image. If he had set a "game camera" that auto tripped or even purposefully handed the camera to the animal and the animal took the picture, he might get some consideration, but essentially when the camera was appropriated without his control and the pictures generated without his control, he's got a harder argument.

 

[quincy]

It this is under US law (the article mentions Indonesia and an apparently British photographer), the animal is NOT an entity that can have rights (copyright or otherwise). The argument is then whether the Slater exerted some creative influence over the generation of the image. If he had set a "game camera" that auto tripped or even purposefully handed the camera to the animal and the animal took the picture, he might get some consideration, but essentially when the camera was appropriated without his control and the pictures generated without his control, he's got a harder argument.

David Slater is from Glouchester, so U.K. copyright laws apply to him. The monkey is from Indonesia, so Indonesian copyright laws apply to him.

A group of monkeys apparently were playing with Slater's cameras when one monkey started clicking photos. Slater did not assist the monkey in creating the photos and, according to Slater, most of the hundred or so photos that were taken by the monkey were blurry.

Here are the relevant Copyright Acts:

For the U.K., where "author" is defined as "the person who creates" the work: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpag/1988/48/contents

For Indonesia, again with person used in defining the author of a work: http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/profile.jsp?code=ID

Under no copyright law are animals able to claim copyright in a work, although it could potentially be possible for a human to get copyright protection for a work they helped an animal to create. Slater, however, already cut that possibility off from consideration by his earlier accounting of how the monkey took the photo.

 

[LdiJ]

David Slater is from Glouchester, so U.K. copyright laws apply to him. The monkey is from Indonesia, so Indonesian copyright laws apply to him.

A group of monkeys apparently were playing with Slater's cameras when one monkey started clicking photos. Slater did not assist the monkey in creating the photos and, according to Slater, most of the hundred or so photos that were taken by the monkey were blurry.

Here are the relevant Copyright Acts:

For the U.K., where "author" is defined as "the person who creates" the work: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpag/1988/48/contents

For Indonesia, again with person used in defining the author of a work: http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/profile.jsp?code=ID

Under no copyright law are animals able to claim copyright in a work, although it could potentially be possible for a human to get copyright protection for a work they helped an animal to create. Slater, however, already cut that possibility off from consideration by his earlier accounting of how the monkey took the photo.

Its a pretty darned good photo...I laughed a lot.

 

[quincy]

I am sure it must be hard for David Slater to know that his most famous photograph to date was taken by a monkey and that he has no (apparent) rights in it. If a court were to decide differently, however, and say that the copyrights belong to Slater, the whole of copyright law would need to be reworked to reflect such a decision - and I do not see that happening.