The story of the monkeys that snapped photographs of themselves made the rounds last week. A photographer’s gear was borrowed by a band of monkeys, and they managed to squeeze off a few photos of themselves. Some of the photos are actually very interesting.
**Photograph on left copyright 2011, an unnamed macaque somewhere in Indonesia. Photograph on right copyright 2011, another unnamed macaque somewhere in Indonesia.**Here’s where it gets muddy. The photographs were taken by the monkeys, not by the (human) photographer that lugged the gear to the spot. Copyright is granted to the creator of a work - the photographer, not the owner of the camera. So, in this case, if copyright applied it would belong to the individual monkeys that triggered the shutter.
Techdirt republished the photos, and the media company that claims to represent the monkeys asked them to take the photos down. That sentence couldn’t get much sillier.
The World Intellectual Property Organization describes copyright as a human right intended to protect creativity. If WIPO defines it as a human right and not as a generic creator’s right, then it clearly does not apply to works created by non-humans. So, a photograph taken by an unnamed macaque in the jungles of Indonesia does not fall under protection of the WIPO treaty. It is not a copyrighted work. If anyone could claim to own copyright, it would be a macaque. And that macaque would be unable to defend such a claim in a (human) court, because our treaty defines copyright as a human right. Now, I’d actually be interested in seeing the definition of copyright loosened up a little. There are plenty of examples of non-humans creating works of art. But, that’s not how things are set up at the moment.
This boils down to a large media company overreaching the limits of copyright law, and relying on the accused to back down out of fear of legal costs. This tactic sounds oddly familiar. I fucking hate bullies.