A heated Internet debate raises important questions that's pertinent to our existence. Do monkeys make good photographers? If so, should they be able to make a career out of it? Lastly, should they be paid in bananas or is it wrong of us to assume that?
Wikimedia Commons, the group behind the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, made this line of questioning possible when it refused to take down a photo of a crested black macaque, arguing that the image belonged to the monkey because it pressed the shutter button.
The tussle between the organization and British photographer David Slater may determine whether a photograph taken by an animal becomes fair game on the Internet or if its copyright rests with the owner of the camera.
The monkey selfie in question was taken in Sulawesi, Indonesia in 2011. Slater said that he spent days following a troop of black macaques until they became comfortable in his presence. When the monkeys started investigating his photography equipment, he came up with the idea of setting up his camera to facilitate a monkey selfie photo shoot. He placed the camera in a tripod, framed the shot and set the exposure to the correct settings. The monkeys obliged by smiling for the camera and pressing the shutter button. Most of the images produced during the photo shoot were blurry and misdirected. However, some were fortunate accidents. The most famous photo in the bunch was one of a smiling female black macaque. The image was picked up by magazines and newspapers around the world, thereby giving Slater his most famous photograph.
However, Wikipedia Commons started distributing the image for free, saying that the photograph is legally in the public domain. Slater disputes this, and says that the website has cost him a lot of money in earnings. "This is ruining my business," he told the Washington Post. "If it was a normal photograph and I had claimed I had taken it, I would potentially be a lot richer than I am."
However, Wikimedia claims that he shouldn't profit from it because no one, not even the monkey, owns the copyright to the photograph. "Because the monkey took the photo and the photographer - although it was his camera- didn't take that photo, there's nobody who copyright belongs to in this particular instance," Katherine Maher, a spokeswoman for Wikimedia, told Public Radio International.
According to the Daily Mail, Slater is considering suing Wikimedia. The lawsuit may involve up to $30,000 in damages.
