More about the Monkey and the Selfie

The New Media Entertainment blog of August 18, 2014 http://blogs.duanemorris.com/newmedialaw/2014/08/18/are-copyrighted-works-only-by-and-for-humans-the-copyright-planet-of-the-apes-and-robots/ attracted a new blog reader, David Slater. He’s the photographer who had contested Wikimedia’s view that certain images of a monkey weren’t copyrightable because it believes that the monkey authored the images.

Mr. Slater wrote us to assert “…that these images were ALL taken on a tripod with a cable release, with the camera’s settings configured by myself, the tripod positioned such that the angle of lighting lit up the monkey nicely and the background was not distracting.”  I appreciate learning Mr. Slater’s point of view.

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Are Copyrighted Works Only by and for Humans? The Copyright Planet of the Apes and Robots

Why should humans own all the world’s copyrights? The question is prompted by a photograph that’s made worldwide news. In Indonesia, a female crested black macaque monkey picked up a camera owned by photographer David Slater. I won’t focus much on the story of the monkey and her selfie because that topic has already been well-discussed in the media. Yet the story sets the table for more intriguing and ultimately more important issues.

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