Copyright belongs to the creator or author of an
original work. That seems easy enough – but
what is an author? Despite all the painting gorillas, dogs and elephants, I want to stick with
photography. We tend to think of the author as
the person who took the shot, who pressed the
button that makes the camera go “click”. But is
it that easy?
Some photographers “direct” the shot while
their assistants create the lighting and operate
the camera and yet we agree that they maintain
copyright despite their lack of button pushing.
Could Mr. Slater be the director? Well no, not
really. The monkey was not directed or prompted. In fact, Mr. Slater did not even know that
the monkey was going to take his camera. There
is no director-assistant relationship here.
In some cases the camera is automatic and does
all the work but the photographer uses software
to manipulate the image after it has been taken
– but we do not think that the camera manufacturer has copyright. But there would then be an
argument for some form of artistic intent, vision, or drive of the photographer.
But this cannot be done when animals take the
image. While the gorillas mentioned above may
appear to have a communicative process in
their artwork this cannot be applied to the monkey selfie situation, as she would be unaware of
the nature of photography. Obviously this is an
assumption on my part but I think it’s a safe one
to make.
The monkey selfie series of photos were not
planned or created. They appeared by accident
and this means that nobody gets to claim copyright. Sure, we could be extremely generous
and argue that the monkey has copyright – not
all artists are aware of the greatness of their
work. But then the question is how to negotiate
the rights. The monkey cannot give permission
for others to use the images, nor can the monkey assign a copyright organization to handle
the rights.
So we are left with the situation where the
monkey maybe has copyright of the image but
cannot give permission and therefore nobody
should be able to use it. But this is moot since
the monkey cannot sue abusers or take them to
court. Or the photo belongs to no one and legally appears in a vacuum…and exists in the public domain.
www.commonsmachinery.se/2014/08/monkeyMUNDANO
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