Monkey Business

<p>Monkey Business</p>

<p>Hi All,</p>

<p>Bad news for UK photographer David Slater. In 2011, he went to Indonesia to photograph endangered black Macaque (don’t ask me to pronounce it) monkeys. One of the monkeys swiped his camera and started pushing the shutter button eventually taking selfies of itself. Slater and his agency tried to register a copyright (©) on the images, Wikipedia said an animal took it so it wasn’t Slater’s to copyright and it was therefore in the public domain because an animal can’t own a copyright. A resulting disagreement between Slater (represented by his picture agency) and Wikipedia was settled when “in a recent <a href="http://copyright.gov/comp3/announcement.html">update</a> to its regulations, the US Copyright Office has ruled that it “will not register works produced by nature, animals, or plants,” and that it “cannot register a work purportedly created by divine or supernatural beings.” It even goes on to list a series of examples, the first of which specifically states that “a photograph taken by a monkey” could not be copyrighted by the agency.”</p>

<p>The moral is: Don't let a monkey swipe your camera when you're in the jungle, and if one does and you get the camera back, don't mention it...:)</p>

<p>Steve Sint<br>

steve@stevesint.com</p>

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<p>Slater was subsequently sued for modifying and distributing a photograph to which he did not have rights.</p>

<p>(Kidding)</p>

<p>Discussion of this three weeks ago <a href="/business-photography-forum/00ckcH">here</a>, some funny responses.</p>

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<p>Don't let a monkey swipe your camera when you're in the jungle, and if one does and you get the camera back, don't mention it...:)</p>

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<p>Bad news for mr. Slater: if the monkey takes the pictures they are special and may be of some value, if he takes the pictures they are not so special and their value will be small. Perhaps he'd better not discussed the copyright but better controlled the distribution of the pictures. The fact that they are public domain does not mean the he cannot sell them.</p>

 

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<p>Jos wrote:<br>

"The fact that they are public domain does not mean the he cannot sell them."<br>

Of course he can sell them if they are in the public domain...the problem for him is the images can also be sold by a few billion other people too and that sort of kills their value. But, considering all the other images I've seen where a camera is remotely tripped by a wild animal subject (humming birds, tigers at a watering hole, etc) I don't think we've heard the last on this subject yet. I think it will go to court and then, depending on the outcome, this news story will need an update. </p>

<p>"But, considering all the other images I've seen where a camera is remotely tripped by a wild animal subject (humming birds, tigers at a watering hole, etc) I don't think we've heard the last on this subject yet."<br>

True, I am sure National Geographic is very concerned right now.</p>