Monkey selfie

[Tugela]

So....

I set up my camera in front of the bird feeder..... it is set to trigger on the detection of motion.... a chickadee lands on the feeder, triggering the camera and I get a picture....

I do not own the copyright to the picture because the chickadee triggered it?

No, you would own the photo because you set it up to be triggered when something specific happened. The photo happened as a result of your actions, not the chikadee's. In this case the monkey took the picture itself, presumably without any input from the photographer.

 

[Tugela]

Nuisance lawsuit filed by PETA, that was going to be dismissed anyway. This whole case, which goes back years and involves Wikipedia and others appropriating the image, is a textbook example of what is wrong with the legal system in America.

Totally wrong. This suit was about the monkey owning the copyright, and U.S. law still holds that they photo is not copyrightable at all, as is the case with elephant paintings. The photographer has not won copyright to the photo, and rightly so since he neither framed the image nor pressed the shutter.

The photographer is selling signed copies of the photo, which is OK and totally legal. He is now free to do so because he is not held to be infringing the monkey's copyright. But then, you and I could also sell signed copies of the photo because the guy does not own the copyright.

AFAIK from this (German language) source http://derstandard.at/2000063935182/Affen-Selfie-Prozess-endet-mit-aussergerichtlicher-Einigung?ref=rec
the lawsuit was settled with the agreement that Slater is keeping the copyrights but is legally responsible to pay 25% of all earnings from these copyrights to animal welfare organizations.

I have no access to the detailed records of this case so I have to rely on the newspaper article.

I have read about this sometime ago, that the PETA position was quite uncertain because an animal is no person by law and therefore cannot hold any copyrights.
And in addition PETA needed a written authority from the monkey to represent it (or her, as it was a female monkey, if you like so) in court.
Try getting a written authority from a monkey :

They would have to prove that the monkey they got the signature from is in fact the monkey in the photograph (all monkeys look the same). They would also need to show that the monkey had not agreed to yield rights to the photograph to the photographer, something that might be difficult since most monkeys don't speak much.

PETA clearly had no standing in this matter. You can't file suit presuming to represent a third party without input from them or at least being a legal representative of them.

 

[vincymol]

Thanks for sharing this.... I am agreed for this



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[Labdoc]

This has supposedly come to a final conclusion. The Monkey can't own anything being an animal, not even a copyright. The human photographer is entitled to reimbursement of attorney fees. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/04/24/monkey-selfie-copyright-case-naruto-crested-macaque/545166002/

 

[unfocused]

This has supposedly come to a final conclusion. The Monkey can't own anything being an animal, not even a copyright. The human photographer is entitled to reimbursement of attorney fees. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/04/24/monkey-selfie-copyright-case-naruto-crested-macaque/545166002/

Glad to see that a little bit of common sense may have prevailed. (Although I'd like to know more details). This lawsuit was always about PETA trying to advance a political agenda. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the original wrong was ever corrected. For those who don't recall, this all got started when Wikipedia stole the photograph and then refused to honor the copyright.

 

[YuengLinger]

Simply a very expensive, mischievous, publicity seeking lawsuit by PETA, a group composed of trust-fund babies with too much time on their hands, and a whole lot of self-loathing they've never worked out in therapy.