Monkey selfie photos: Who owns them?

[MechAg94]

I was unaware of this case.  I am a bit stunned that it has gone this far.  Do federal courts allow people to sue for compensation after a case is over?

I am also trying to figure out why PETA is allowed to sue a guy from the UK in California on behalf of a monkey in Indonesia.  I don't see how US courts have any jurisdiction in the matter of who owns the copyright.

Monkey selfie photographer says he's broke: 'I'm thinking of dog walking'
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/monkey-selfie-macaque-copyright-court-david-slater

'He is a monkey': Federal appeals court appears doubtful that a monkey who took a selfie can sue
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-monkey-9th-circuit-20170712-story.html

The Selfie Monkey Goes to the Ninth Circuit
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wj8pm9/the-selfie-monkey-goes-to-the-ninth-circuit

PETA Appeals ‘Monkey Selfie’ Case on Grounds That Monkey Owns Copyright
https://www.peta.org/blog/peta-appeal-monkey-selfie-case-grounds-monkey-owns-copyright/

[RevDisk]

PETA are anti-human and generally anti-animal. Any human development is bad, of course. Any animal not in their natural environment is bad as well. Better dead than a pet. They view animals in their natural environment as more important than any other consideration. Anything that they can do to drive this agenda is justified. Pain and suffering of innocents is a small price to pay for their ideology.

[Hawkmoon]

I'm extremely disappointed that the court hasn't already thrown this out and fined the PETA legal team for filing a frivolous lawsuit. This is far beyond "ridiculous." Our courts have enough real work to do without being clogged up with *expletive deleted*it like this.

[MillCreek]

You know that if the monkeys get royalties, they are just going to use it for hookers and blow.

[Angel Eyes]

You know that if the monkeys get royalties, they are just going to use it for hookers and blow.

That's speciesist.

[Firethorn]

I'm extremely disappointed that the court hasn't already thrown this out and fined the PETA legal team for filing a frivolous lawsuit. This is far beyond "ridiculous." Our courts have enough real work to do without being clogged up with *expletive deleted*it like this.

Have you read the actual case?  It's actually an interesting question, legally speaking.  Which is why it hasn't been thrown out.

In the case of the selfie, the problem that the photographer had is that he didn't take the photograph, intend for the photograph to be taken, etc...

The monkey stole the camera and took the picture himself.  

If the photographer had knowingly given the monkey the camera* intending for pictures to be taken, then it'd be a settled question.  Same with automatically triggered game cameras and such.  As is, the only claim the photographer has is that it was his own camera.  If a human child had stolen the camera and selfied themselves, the child would own the copyright, despite the camera not being theirs.

It'd be like, oh, finding a piece of termite chewed wood out in the forest and claiming that you own the copyright for the wood, not the picture you took of it.

*Perhaps one less valuable, more armored, video recording**, a more big obvious button, etc...
**So you get all the angles the camera was held at.

[zxcvbob]

I thought it was settled law.  The monkey owns the photo; animals cannot hold copyright, so it reverts to the public domain. 

[Firethorn]

I thought it was settled law.  The monkey owns the photo; animals cannot hold copyright, so it reverts to the public domain. 

Well, it wasn't settled enough, and that's actually what PETA was arguing, that the photo is public domain, the photographer who owned the camera is claiming the copyright for himself.

[zxcvbob]

Well, it wasn't settled enough, and that's actually what PETA was arguing, that the photo is public domain, the photographer who owned the camera is claiming the copyright for himself.

Is he claiming copyright of the photo itself, or the book that contains the photo?  There's a difference.  Recipes cannot be copyrighted, cookbooks can be.

[Firethorn]

Is he claiming copyright of the photo itself, or the book that contains the photo?  There's a difference.  Recipes cannot be copyrighted, cookbooks can be.

He was attempting to charge royalties for the use of the photo.

[just Warren]

So what? If he can get people to pay why is that an issue?

[MechAg94]

Have you read the actual case?  It's actually an interesting question, legally speaking.  Which is why it hasn't been thrown out.

In the case of the selfie, the problem that the photographer had is that he didn't take the photograph, intend for the photograph to be taken, etc...

The monkey stole the camera and took the picture himself.  

If the photographer had knowingly given the monkey the camera* intending for pictures to be taken, then it'd be a settled question.  Same with automatically triggered game cameras and such.  As is, the only claim the photographer has is that it was his own camera.  If a human child had stolen the camera and selfied themselves, the child would own the copyright, despite the camera not being theirs.

It'd be like, oh, finding a piece of termite chewed wood out in the forest and claiming that you own the copyright for the wood, not the picture you took of it.

*Perhaps one less valuable, more armored, video recording**, a more big obvious button, etc...
**So you get all the angles the camera was held at.

I think it is from the first link.  

Slater has long maintained that the selfies were the result of his ingenuity in coaxing the monkeys into pressing the shutter while looking into the lens, after he struggled to get them to keep their eyes open for a wide-angle close-up.

“It wasn’t serendipitous monkey behavior,” he said. “It required a lot of knowledge on my behalf, a lot of perseverance, sweat and anguish, and all that stuff.”

The photographer claims he came up with a way to get the monkeys to activate the camera while looking into it.  In other words, it wasn't just monkeys stealing his camera and inadvertently taking selfies.  He set it up.  He had multiple pictures with different monkeys. 

On the other side of that, if a deer activates a game camera by stepping in front of it, does the deer now own that photo also?

[MechAg94]

He was attempting to charge royalties for the use of the photo.

According to one of the links, Wikipedia and another site published his photos on their site and when he contacted them about it, they made the claim he didn't own the photos.

[Hawkmoon]

Have you read the actual case?  It's actually an interesting question, legally speaking.  Which is why it hasn't been thrown out.

In the case of the selfie, the problem that the photographer had is that he didn't take the photograph, intend for the photograph to be taken, etc...

The monkey stole the camera and took the picture himself.  

If the photographer had knowingly given the monkey the camera* intending for pictures to be taken, then it'd be a settled question.  Same with automatically triggered game cameras and such.  As is, the only claim the photographer has is that it was his own camera.  If a human child had stolen the camera and selfied themselves, the child would own the copyright, despite the camera not being theirs.

It'd be like, oh, finding a piece of termite chewed wood out in the forest and claiming that you own the copyright for the wood, not the picture you took of it.

*Perhaps one less valuable, more armored, video recording**, a more big obvious button, etc...
**So you get all the angles the camera was held at.

1. The monkey is still not a person, and thus not eligible under the law to own a copyright.

2. I don't see this as inherently different from a game camera. A deer "takes" the picture by walking within range of the infrared sensor, the owner of the camera doesn't stand there and press the shutter button. In this case, the monkey was playing with something. It did not know what the something did, it was just playing with a new toy. There was no intention on the monkey's part to take a photograph.

3. In fact, under the principle that a criminal should not be allowed to profit from a crime, it would seem that the monkey should have been arrested and tried for larceny. Any copyright to the photograph(s) should be assigned to the owner of the camera anyway (if the court finds he doesn't own them anyway) as compensation for the effects of the crime.

IMHO, if PETA wants to claim that the monkey has sufficient "personhood" to own a copyright to a photo it didn't know it was taking, then said monkey MUST also have sufficient personhood to be charged and convicted of a theft it didn't know it was committing.

Sauce ==> goose ==> gander.