Wikipedia refuses to delete a photo, copyright issue

<p>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11015672/Wikipedia-refuses-to-delete-photo-as-monkey-owns-it.html</p>

 

<p>Monkey business</p>

<p>I see the core issue as: Can a monkey (or any animal) really own the copyright? I have a hard time understanding this point of view. If so, how do you negotiate with the monkey to obtain rights? <br>

In this case, I believe that the photographer is correct and wikipedia should be fined big time for making up their own laws.</p>

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<p>If so, how do you negotiate with the monkey to obtain rights? </p>

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I assume the monkey signed a work-for-hire agreement with the photographer. </p>

<p>I'm convinced the court will side with Wikipedia should it proceeds to trial. </p>

<p>Oh yeah,...the monkey forwarded the photos to the editors. Too funny, indeed. Maybe the 'tog will gain a lesson from this.</p>

<p>Les</p>

<p>There's nothing to go bananas about with this twisted tale. This case is strictly monkey business. There was no chimping done by the owner. The creature went ape and stole the camera. The beginning of creation here started with the apes. No one first proclaimed "let there be flash". At best, any human caused composition arose merely by accident from monkey see, monkey do mimicry. This is how the Copyright Act works. Its not the law of the jungle.</p>

<p>Who owns the copyrights for photos taken when an animal trips the shutter on an unmanned game camera?<br>

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140125-snow-leopard-pakistan-animals-science-world-endangered-species/</p>

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<p>I'm convinced the court will side with Wikipedia should it proceeds to trial.</p>

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<p><br /><br />I'm convinced that Wikipedia would back down if it got that far. The (human) photographer set up the shot and presumably has the original RAW files. If he asserts his ownership of copyright, only the monkey can challenge that if he believes he is the true copyright owner - and I don't think that would happen!<br>

<br />Wikipedia cannot do it on the monkey's behalf.</p>

<p> </p>

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<p><em>"Who owns the copyrights for photos taken when an animal trips the shutter on an unmanned game camera?"</em></p>

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<p>It remains untested in the courts but apparently many legal professionals feel such situations do not constitute authorship. <br>

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality#Pre-positioned_recording_devices">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality#Pre-positioned_recording_devices</a></p>

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<p><em>"The (human) photographer set up the shot and presumably has the original RAW files. If he asserts his ownership of copyright, only the monkey can challenge that if he believes he is the true copyright owner"</em></p>

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<p>Steve, the Wikipedia page above might clarify that a little. <br>

<br>

You can randomly assert ownership of property without regard to legal merit, but defending that assertion in a court of law is a different matter. </p>

<p>These disputes won't be adequately resolved until all parties - particularly the courts and judges - better understand technology and interfaces. There is much more to an interface than mere physical contact. Otherwise there would be disputes over the ownership of materials generated by disabled persons who use their eye movements to operate a computer or other device, without any physical contact. If the disabled person had to ask me to click the enter key to publish a document, it wouldn't transfer ownership or copyright of the material to me.</p>

<p>A more directly comparable case might involve the differences between the written movie script and the spoken words in the finished production. Actors often deviate slightly from the script - sometimes unintentionally, but close enough, sometimes intentionally because they prefer to ad lib and do so with or without the blessing of the director and writer(s). But the actors whose spoken words differ from the script generally do not receive writing credit, copyrights or profits accrued to the script and its writers. Otherwise Marlon Brando, a notorious ad libber and improviser, would have claimed part ownership in every script in every movie in which he participated, other than his roles in <em>Julius Caesar</em> and <em>Streetcar Named Desire</em>, in which he appeared to stick to the scripts.</p>

<p>But even a non-tech savvy judge should be able to discern intent here. While some primates have demonstrated some ability to pass along useful survival information adapted by an older generation to the next generation, so far they haven't demonstrated intent to inform Wikipedia editors regarding art or law.</p>

<p>And it's pointless to debate Wikipedia over the issue. The primary concern should be commercial usage of the image. Wikipedia isn't a business, or if it is it's a terrible business model, known primarily for internecine disputes and revert wars among unpaid editors, and providing entertainment for web trolls and documenters of web drama.</p>

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<p><em>"Who owns the copyrights for photos taken when an animal trips the shutter on an unmanned game camera?"</em><br>

It remains untested in the courts but apparently many legal professionals feel such situations do not constitute authorship. <br /> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality#Pre-positioned_recording_devices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality#Pre-positioned_recording_devices</a></p>

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<p>I doubt there will be a consensus among legal professionals that mere copying of alphabetic phone listings (as cited in wikipedia) is the same a aiming a camera to intentionally pick up what comes in its path. Much different than a monkee grabbing it and going wild.</p>

<p>I'm not sure that a monkey grabbing a deliberately placed camera and going wild is very different from a photographer physically pressing the shutter release button. The increasing use of GoPro and similar cameras, drones, unattended remote cameras, etc., all constitute intent by the photographer. That intent should be the primary factor in ownership, authorship and copyrights.</p>

<p>I suppose it really depends on Indonesian copyright law. I'm going to guess these kinds of subtleties haven't been worked out in court yet and it's too expensive to do so for the most part. Makes for good forum speculation. Maybe the owner of the camera should have used a slightly different but marginally less interesting story from the beginning. If he had said he had intentionally given the camera to the monkey to let him take pictures?</p>

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<p>"I'm not sure that a monkey grabbing a deliberately placed camera and going wild is very different from a photographer physically pressing the shutter release button."</p>

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<p> That's probably accurate but I referenced the fact pattern the article was about, not this.</p>

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<p><em>The (human) photographer set up the shot and presumably has the original RAW files. If he asserts his ownership of copyright, only the monkey can challenge that if he believes he is the true copyright owner - and I don't think that would happen!</em><br /><br /><em>Wikipedia cannot do it on the monkey's behalf.</em></p>

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<p>Seems a lot of people have been mislead by the media's usual sloppy headline writing. The press all played this out as "Wikipedia say Monkey owns copyright - not the photographer" but that isn't the case.<br /><br />Wikipedia's position is that neither the photographer or the monkey own the copyright. The tog does not own the copyright as the monkey took the image but the monkey can not own the copyright as it is not human. As a result they believe no one owns the copyright and thus the image is public domain. </p>

<p>This seems facially absurd. Does that mean that Harold "Doc" Edgerton's famous photos like "Milk Drop Cornet" (1957) or ".30 Bullet Piercing an Apple" (1964) are public domain because the shutter was not actuated by Doc's finger, but instead by a machine? Does Wikimedia contend that every photo taken with a Triggertrap is public domain?</p>

<p>Nussenzweig v. DiCorcia is a well known case in which the phtoographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia was sued by Erno Nussenzweig. diCorcia set up a camera, tripod, lights and a motion-activated shutter and took photos of strangers passing through his trap. Nussenzweig saw his likeness and sued, arguing that his likeness could not be used for commercial gain (diCorcia published the photo in a book and sold limited edition art prints of the phtoo). The New York Supreme Court sided with diCorcia; certainly there is no sense in which the copyright legally belongs to Nussenzweig!</p>