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A photo that was taken when a monkey grabbed a camera and started taking photos has been uploaded to Wikimedia, who are refusing to take it down. The photographer who owned the camera used is claiming copyright but Wikimedia disagrees, saying that it is the animal itself that owns the copyright.
The Gloucestershire-based photographer now claims that the decision is jeopardising his income as anyone can take the image and publish it for free, without having to pay him a royalty. He complained To Wikimedia that he owned the copyright of the image, but a recent transparency report from the group, which details all the removal requests it has received, reveals that editors decided that Mr Slater has no claim on the image as the monkey itself took the picture.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 07 2014, @10:05PM
The camera owner *describes* Wikimedia's argument as "the monkey owns the copyright", but the camera owner is describing Wikimedia's argument inaccurately, and seems not to understand the idea of public domain.
No, the camera owner is right. The monkey does own the copyright, not just for this photo but also for everything in the public domain because we all own the public domain collectively.
What might seem like a mere issue of phrasing is actually quite important because whenever anyone tries to take something out of the public domain, they are stealing from everyone. So, when companies like Disney buy legislation to have copyright terms extended preventing hundreds of thousands of works from entering the public domain, as per the terms of copyright under which they were created, they are actually pirating from every single person on the planet. That makes them a million times larger thieves than all the other 'regular' pirates in the world combined.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Friday August 08 2014, @12:46AM
They are Privateers
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 08 2014, @01:53PM
The monkey does not have human rights (although there are some people who would like to extend human rights to animals), and therefore cannot legally own anything, not even something owned by the public.
Also, the camera owner is not claiming that the monkey owns the copyright, so he cannot be right on that.
And he is claiming that Wikimedia claims it, which apparently is wrong (independently on whether the claim itself would have been right or wrong if Wikimedia had made it). So again, the camera owner is not right on that.
Whether he's right on his claim of owning the copyright, I guess that's a question a court will answer.