Simian selfie stupidity: Macaque snap sparks Wikipedia copyright row When a black macaque on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi took a selfie using photographer David Slater’s camera in 2011, it broke the barrier between man and monkey in more ways than one. Yes, it showed the world that speechless beasts are as self-obsessed – and location-aware – as humans. Give a monkey a camera and, …
"In some parts of the music industry, the owner of the equipment used in a production has part ownership of the end result. Wonder if its similar here?"
Yes, but is that ownership inherent in the relevant part of the law itself, or merely de facto standard contractual practice in the music industry?
In some parts of the music industry, the owner of the equipment used in a production has part ownership of the end result. Wonder if its similar here?
Never heard of that, and I've had a record contract. Are you getting confused with "points", where sometimes a producer will take a percentage of royalties rather than a fixed payment for working on a recording?
The Wikipedia argument is based on the idiotic assumption that you can confer the 'Rights of the Artist' on the monkey and nominate it as the photographer (and thus robbing Slater of his rights), whilst at the same time asserting that the law does not allow the monkey property rights over the resultant image.
Since the monkey has no rights whatsoever under the law, Slater allowing the monkeys to use his camera on themselves is the only 'art' here; he is the artist, and he thus owns all rights over the works produced.
It's no different to the BBC Natural History Unit owning the footage they shot when they trained elephants to carry their cameras. I hope he gets a lot more than just loss of earnings when he sues their idiotic arses.
Slater "owns" the copyright, in exactly the same way as Nikon, or whoever it was made the camera does, or his mum for giving him the money to buy it. Slater doesn't "Own" the photo, because he doesn't and the monkey doesn't, because it can't (at least in the eyes of the law).
No, you're just making the same argument - that you can somehow say the monkey is legally responsible for taking the image and thus Slater has surrendered his rights to it, whilst at the same time asserting that the monkey has no rights. That's nonsense.
More to the point, who made Wikimedia judge and jury and said they could clarify a possibly obscure part of the law (or possibly not, because as mentioned above David Attenborough's programs have been running for decades)? I'm pretty sure if it goes to court then a judge would have something to say about that.
> that you can somehow say the monkey is legally responsible for taking the image and thus Slater has surrendered his rights to it, whilst at the same time asserting that the monkey has no rights.
No, I believe that the argument is that Slater never had any rights to the image in the first place, because he was not the creator of the work.
A painting tutor may buy, transport, and set up the easels, canvas, paints, and brushes, but without an previously agreed contract, they have no rights to the works their students create. Should it be any different if some of the "students" happen to be apes, elephants, or robots?
Yes it's different, because human art students have rights themselves protected by the law; their tutor can't claim their works as his own, unless they specifically sign them over. Animals and machines do not have such rights. If he set up a clockwork whirly paint sprayer in front of the canvas, he would be considered the artist. If he let a spider crawl through paint and walk across the canvas, he would also own the result. And if he put a brush in the hand of a monkey to see what happens, the end result would also be his. You cannot simply claim no-one is responsible for the result just because you feel like it. There is no legal grounds for denying him the rights to the artistry that resulted from a situation he was responsible for. Only another involved legal party can do that, and there are none.
> No, I believe that the argument is that Slater never had any rights to the image in the first place, because he was not the creator of the work.
Exactly. The EC copyright directive (2001/29/EG) does not define who the creator is. But in paragraphs 9 and 10 of the preamble, it says the the protection is granted in order to allow authors or performers to continue their creative and artistic work (not quoted verbatim). I read this to be a requirement that the creation is the result of a wilful and intentional act (or ommission) to create a result.
Now from the telegraph article, I understand that while the animal pressed the button, Mr. Slater did not chase it away and left it to proceed for quite some time. To me, this seems to be an intentional ommission that led to a result (the photo). From my point of view, this satifies the requirement but this is strictly a personal opinion and it is debatable where to set the threshold.
quote: "Exactly. The EC copyright directive (2001/29/EG) does not define who the creator is. But in paragraphs 9 and 10 of the preamble, it says the the protection is granted in order to allow authors or performers to continue their creative and artistic work (not quoted verbatim). I read this to be a requirement that the creation is the result of a wilful and intentional act (or ommission) to create a result."
And since the simian cannot be the author or performer (it is not recognised legally) then the only recognised actor in the creation of the work is Mr. Slater. Who, according to the BBC article, actually expended quite a bit of specific effort to get the picture:
"I became accepted as part of the troop, they touched me and groomed me... so I thought they could take their own photograph.
"I set the camera up on a tripod, framed [the shot] up and got the exposure right... and all you've got to do is give the monkey the button to press and lo and behold you got the picture." (emphasis mine)
The only legally recognised entity that put specific work in to take that photograph is Mr. Slater, who gets copyright automatically attributed under EU/UK copyright legislation.
All the talk about the monkey is a red herring ;)
We violently agree. The question is whether Mr. Slater created the photograph and the animal's legal status plays no part in the answer.
From the BBC article (thank you for the link), apparently it was not only an ommission to chase the simian away but he set in motion the develoment that led to the photo, thus he acted with intent. My feeling is it is going to be hard to argue that Mr. Slater did not create the photo in this context.
My understanding of copyright is that simply judging ownership based on the person who pressed the shutter is not accepted, for example what happens if I ask a stranger to take a picture of me with my camera? Does he/she own the image?
On the whole I agree with the idea of sharing information, but there is a big difference between sharing and taking. Sharing is when the owner (and let's face it, images, songs, programs etc DO have owners) decides to let people use it. Sadly a lot of the crowd shouting about freedom of information are arguing in order to justify the volume of films/music they download, and while I'm very much against the business model used by the relevant industries, it's still theft. I do it as much as anyone else, but I don't try to pretend I'm some kind of hero for doing it.
> On the whole I agree with the idea of sharing information, but there is a big difference between sharing and taking.
What is under debate here is not anything to do with sharing or taking. That is a purely moral argument.
What is under debate is whether or not the photograph is copyrighted by the photographer or if it slips into the public domain because of some grey area in the law.
If the photograph is in the public domain, then moral judgement just doesn't come into it. Anyone can do whatever they want with it for whatever purpose since nobody has a copyright privilege over it. It's as simple as that.
The other arguments that I have seen prior regarding snaps taken by a passer-by do in fact suggest that there is some scope of ambiguity here. Since copyright assignment almost never enters into those kinds of practical situations then they're never tested in law. That doesn't mean that those situations don't fit into that same grey area though.
Yeah, actually quite a lot of people do. And as someone who has several times donated to Wikipedia over the years (not much, about £100 in total, I'd guess), I certainly wont be doing so again for some time after they attempt to rip off some photographer based on a supposed loophole.
This is common practice in the world of the professional photographer and their assistants. The pro will choose the location, lens, point of interest etc. but it may be the assistant who takes the photograph. Copyright is still retained by the pro (this article highlights a shot where the assistant got a joint credit - and this was noteworthy at the time)
Not that I would in any way want to liken photographic assistants to monkeys of course...
As I understand it, in some jurisdictions some pictures aren't copyrighted at all as there is insufficient creative input. For example, if I photocopy an A4 page using a normal photocopier in the normal way, do I own copyright in the photocopy? Probably not. What if I photograph a poster on the wall, where all I did was hold the camera so that the opposite sides of the poster were roughly parallel in the image?
And here's an interesting case: a screenshot from a webcam chat. I saw such a picture in a magazine and the caption implied that the picture was made by the person who took the screenshot, but how much creative input is there in taking a screenshot? One might argue that the person at the other end, who positioned both the camera and themselves, had a far greater creative input and ought therefore to be the copyright owner.
Anyone who thinks the answers to these questions are obvious is probably a bit stupid.
"For example, if I photocopy an A4 page using a normal photocopier in the normal way, do I own copyright in the photocopy? Probably not."
Probably. You could argue that it was a derivative work and that others should not be allowed to copy your copy without your permission. They'd have to go back to the original. However, none of this sophistry would exempt them and you from obtaining the permission of the original creator if the page you copied was itself a copyrighted work.
Would Mr Slater be getting all this publicity for a picture of a monkey if
a) he had taken the picture himself or
b) Wikipedia hadn't decided to make a point about copyright?
It sounds like he is the one who wants his cake and to eat it too.
He wants the revenue from the shot, but it only became valuable due to the fact the monkey actually took it and might actually be the accredited photographer?
Has anyone asked the monkey what he thinks about the whole thing?
I would hazard a guess that his reply would something along the lines of
"All those years of evolution and _this_ is what your civilisation has come to? Move aside, it's our turn."
As has been mentioned by several people, the Macaque in question is not a legally recognised entity, therefore it cannot be recognised as the creator of the work. As was also mentioned by several people (and shamelessly stolen by me for repeating), the BBC article specifically mentions that Mr. Slater deliberately and with significant effort set the shot up.
"I set the camera up on a tripod, framed [the shot] up and got the exposure right... and all you've got to do is give the monkey the button to press and lo and behold you got the picture."
He deliberately set up the camera, deliberately framed the shot, deliberately handed the Macaque the remote shutter release button, and then waited. As the only legally recognised entity involved in the creation of that photograph, he has taken it himself.
Whether you feel that intelligent species that aren't homo sapiens should be legally recognised is a completely different issue, but as the law stands it is copyrightly patently obvious to me who owns the copyright in that specific photograph.
The above discourse got me ruminating on something I read a few years ago.
Now thanks to OOOkgle! and Wikipedia, I was able to find it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_personhood
Seems like Mr. Slater should be careful about pursuing any legal action in courts of the Balearic Islands (Spain), Germany or New Zealand where certain rights have legally been accorded to certain simians.
New Zealand is an interesting case in point, especially as the following quote seems allegedly to imply that certain apes are even protected from having to become teachers....!!!!!
"New Zealand granted strong protections to five great ape species in 1999. Their use is now forbidden in research, testing, or teaching. Some argue that New Zealand's protections amount to a form of weak legal rights. [8]"
Given that Germany is in the EU and given the recent EU Court privacy case, I reckon the aforementioned macaque should request removal of all references to him in search engines and the Interwebs unless he gets a cut of Mr. Slater's income from this mugshot!!!
"Some argue that New Zealand's protections amount to a form of weak legal rights".
Rational human beings with even the vaguest understanding of the law, on the other hand...
Those are prohibitions that apply to humans in contact with the animals, not rights that are conferred on the animals as individuals. What's next, healthcare and free bus passes for Grade II listed buildings? Or maybe housing benefit would be more appropriate...
> Those are prohibitions that apply to humans in contact with the animals, not rights that are conferred on the animals as individuals. What's next, healthcare and free bus passes for Grade II listed buildings? Or maybe housing benefit would be more appropriate...
Most rights conferred by law on humans are actually prohibitions set against others. Laws relating to theft, assault are not privileges afforded to people, but prohibitions set against others.
A "right to a private life" is actually a prohibition against others to interfere with your privacy.
Since the law has little enforcement provision other than to punish others in this area, I wouldn't be so contrite about what is and isn't a right.
Despite the tone of the article(I hadn't realised Gavin Clarke was Andrew Orlowski's new pseudonym), I think technically Wikipedia are legally correct.
The question of whether the monkey can be considered legally as can individual, obscures the fact that it is the person who presses the button who is considered the owner of copyright , not the owner of the equipment.
The article tries to make out that this a power grab by freetards, but to me it just shows the holes and inconsistencies that the current copyright legislation ties itself up into. The more the law tries to defend copyright the more out of touch with reality it looks.
[CITATION NEEDED]
Citations are only ever any use if one is capable of reading them. In this case, the article linked in one of the posts above. Oh, and even attempting to claim that mere ownership of the means implies automatic copyright in whatever they produce without one's significant creative involvement is simply so ludicrous it beggars belief - don't bother...
quote: "Oh, and even attempting to claim that mere ownership of the means implies automatic copyright in whatever they produce without one's significant creative involvement is simply so ludicrous it beggars belief - don't bother..." (emphasis mine)
For the 5th? time this thread, quoted from Mr. Slater himself:
"I set the camera up on a tripod, framed [the shot] up and got the exposure right... and all you've got to do is give the monkey the button to press and lo and behold you got the picture."
Sounds like significant creative involvement to me.
quote: "There were two parties involved in producing this photograph:
1) The photographer, who created the situation, set up and adjusted the camera and allowed the ape to play with it, in full knowledge of the likely outcome.
2) The ape, who pressed the button without any concept of what it was doing other than copying the previously observed physical actions of the photographer."
As has also been said 5? times already this thread, the Macaque is not legally recognised as a party, the same way a snail would not be legally recognised as a party. Thus there was one party involved in producing this photograph, namely Mr. Slater. In cases where only one party is involved in creating a work, is that party not automatically accredited with copyright in that work?
I do not think Wikipedia's argument holds any legal water, at least not under UK or EU copyright legislation, and I suspect not under US legislation either (they tend to take quite a dim view of IP infringement over there as well).
Note: both these arguments are not mine, I have shamelessly ripped off people far more erudite than I. I am simply (re)presenting them in the hopes of elucidating others.
No, I think the articles recently show just how much Wikimedia respects copyright. Of every single request for removal due to copyright issues that the WMF has received they have complied with a grand total of 0.00%
The Wikimedia Foundation has also published its first transparency report - following a similar practice by Google, Twitter and others.
It reveals that the organisation received 304 general content removal requests between July 2012 and June 2014, none of which it complied with.
This money shot is just another example of them not respecting copyright holders and will claim anything is in the public domain if it suits them to, ignoring that they will say "yeah, it's copyright but, well, under US law FU! BWAHAHAHAHA".
It's a gross oversimplification to say that copyright belongs to the person to pressed the shutter button. For copyright to exist at all, the photograph must be a creative work, hence it must involve a creative step. The party who makes the creative step is the author.
There were two parties involved in producing this photograph:
1) The photographer, who created the situation, set up and adjusted the camera and allowed the ape to play with it, in full knowledge of the likely outcome.
2) The ape, who pressed the button without any concept of what it was doing other than copying the previously observed physical actions of the photographer.
So, one of those parties thought about and planned the end result, while the just copied the pressing of a button. Which do you deduce was involved in a creative step and hence is the creator of the work?
The debate has revealed a lot of unnatural 'divide by zero' type arguments.
Here's one solution in this case. The monkey took the picture, but the owner's camera actually created the JPEG. So Canon owns the copyright to all jpeg pictures taken by Canon hardware.
My opinion is that photographers get too much respect for 17ms work. Sometimes they work at it; but often they just happen to be in the right place at the right time and then they push the button. Give 'em a 6 month copyright on such documentary images.
>>"My opinion is that photographers get too much respect for 17ms work"
I was once paid £200 for about an hour's work. Of course there was all the study, the extensive experience in writing code, two years of familiarity gained by working with that particular piece of software that enabled me to do that hour's work. But no, surely that should all be ignored because it's the time it took to actually do that specific piece of work that matters.
And photographers who take a photo in "17ms" of a shutter opening and closing! Why they barely deserve to be paid at all!
>>"The debate has revealed a lot of unnatural 'divide by zero' type arguments"
Oh great - now the Bible types are here with their arguments that something is bad because it is "unnatural".
Hint: humanity has created a lot of artificial structures that are good for society.
"Oh great - now the Bible types are here with their arguments that something is bad because it is "unnatural".
Hint: humanity has created a lot of artificial structures that are good for society."
Divide by cucumber error: reinstall universe and reboot.
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