Who Owns a Monkey’s Selfie? And a Song About Meningitis!
Due to brain fog, I didn't explain any of the copyright stuff particularly well, but (in summation) a photographer is suing the Wikimedia Foundation (the people who create Wikipedia) for acting as if a photograph is in the public domain when he believes it is not. The only way to determine who is correct is to have a judge decide...that's how copyright law works, which is really weird.
I mean, the question also becomes, if I drop my camera and it takes a really great shot...do I own that picture or not, just because the force of gravity took it.
Also, I'm curious whether the work of a non-human owned by a human (like a dog) would pass to that human. Just like something created by a piece of computer software would be owned by the person who owns the software. It doesn't change this case because no one owns that monkey.
ANYHOW! Feel better John, and let's hope Calvin Harris doesn't sue us :-)
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that's a really odd idea,
Okay, so under US law; the Copyright Compendium §202.02(b) (to be exact) it states that copyright can only be owned by a human. Unfortunately for the poor monkey, that means that Wikimedia were okay to ignore Slater's (the photographer) notice-and-take-down order. Copyright law really needs evaluating, since it can't unfortunately keep up with technology ... and apparently, monkeys.
