In 2011,
British wildlife photographer David Slater was traveling through the jungle in
Indonesian when a crested black macaque grabbed his camera and started snapping
selfies. Somebody posted the images in Wikipedia Commons, meaning anybody could
use them for free. A legal battle ensued, with Slater claiming the images
belong to him, and Wikipedia countering that the images belong to the public
since they weren't created by a human. Wikimedia, the organisation behind
Wikipedia, has refused a photographer’s repeated requests to remove one of his
images which is used online without his permission, claiming that because a
monkey pressed the shutter button it owns the copyright. The Wikimedia Commons
is a collection of 22,302,592 images and videos that are free to use by anyone
online, and editors have included Mr Slater’s image among its database. Slater, from Coleford, Gloucestershire, was on a
trip to a small national park north of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi when
he met the incredibly friendly bunch.
The crested black
macaque is extremely rare and critically endangered. These were part of
a study group near a science base in the region, home to researchers from
Holland. Slater
teamed up with a local guide because I knew about the apes and wanted to
photograph them. Slater now faces £10,000 in legal costs
to recover his rights. And he’s got a good argument: Mr Slater said that the
photography trip was extremely expensive and that he has not made much money
from the image despite its enormous popularity. That trip cost me about £2,000
for that monkey shot. Not to mention the £5,000 of equipment I carried, the
insurance, the computer stuff I used to process the images. Photography is an
expensive profession that’s being encroached upon. They’re taking our
livelihoods away. For every 100000 images I take, one makes money that keeps me
going. And that was one of those images. It was like a year of work, really.
To capture the
perfect wildlife image, you usually have to be in exactly the right place at
precisely the right time. But in this instance, David Slater wasn’t there at
all and he still got a result. Visiting a national park in North Sulawesi,
Indonesia, award-winning photographer Mr Slater left his camera unattended for
a while. It
soon attracted the attention of an inquisitive female from a local group of
crested black macaque monkeys, known for their intelligence and dexterity. Fascinated by her
reflection in the lens, she then somehow managed to start the camera. The
upshot: A splendid self-portrait. The U.S.
Copyright Office addresses the dispute in the latest draft of its “Compendium
Of U.S. Copyright Office Practices”, which was published on 19th August,
2014. The previous compendium stated clearly that “Materials produced solely by
nature, by plants, or by animals are not copyrightable.
First there was a
lot of grimacing with their teeth showing because it was probably the first
time they had ever seen a reflection.' They were quite mischievous jumping all
over my equipment, and it looked like they were already posing for the camera
when one hit the button. 'The sound got his attention and he kept pressing
it 'At first it
scared the rest of them away but they soon came back - it was amazing to watch. 'He must have
taken hundreds of pictures by the time I got my camera back, but not very many
were in focus. He obviously hadn't worked that out yet. 'I wish I could
have stayed longer as he probably would have taken a full family album.
A musical
work created by solely by an animal would not be registrable, such as a bird
song or whale song. Likewise, music generated entirely by a mechanical or an
automated process is not copyrightable. For example, the automated
transposition of a musical work from one key to another is not registrable. Nor
could a musical composition created solely by a computer algorithm be
registered. Dances performed or intended to be performed by animals, machines,
or other animate or inanimate objects are not copyrightable and cannot be
registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.
It can be
argued that if the photographer had set up the camera, framed the shot, and
simply let the monkey click the shutter, perhaps there is some copyright there
(though, even then it would likely be limited to some of the framing, and not
much else). But David Slater has already admitted that the monkeys found a
camera he had left out by accident and that he did not have anything to do with
setting up the shot. He's stated that the monkeys were playing with the shiny
objects and when one pushed the shutter, the noise interested them and they kept
it up. It would be difficult to argue he made any sort of creative contribution
here to warrant copyright. Can the monkeys get the copyright But since Slater
is a British citizen and there are no international copyright laws, it's not
clear how the case will pan out or whether Slater will continue to press the
matter.
In the U.K.,
under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, a photographer can claim
rights over an image even if he or she did not press the shutter button if the
results are their “intellectual creation. However, such a case has never been
tried in court and the outcome would be uncertain.
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news
