Even a Monkey Can Do It? A Copyright Fight Over Monkey Selfie
When British nature photographer David J. Slater traveled to Indonesia in 2011, his goal was to add to his list of awards with a prize image of the crested black macaque. He was in for a surprise, however, when one of the primates took the shot that would be seen by millions around the world. As Slater set up his equipment, one curious macaque knocked over a camera and accidentally snapped a picture. Hearing the click, the macaque became more curious and soon had hit the button over 300 times while looking at the reflection in the lens. The result? An incredible selfie of the smiling monkey. The picture known as the Monkey Selfie was distributed far and wide, and was posted by a third party to Wikimedia Commons for free distribution and use. Upon seeing this use without his permission, Slater requested that the photo be taken down, to which the Wikimedia Foundation responded that he had no intellectual property rights in a photo he did not take.
Who owns the copyright? Likely no one, as the law currently will only recognize human ownership in intellectual property. As for Slater, he neither pressed the button himself nor was it a work for hire. As for an alternate theory of ownership, Slater says “I believe there’s a case to be had that the monkey was my assistant.”
Unlikely. Slater’s best hope is to argue he added significant additional artistic value by editing the photo afterwards, and therefore created an original work. The facts suggest otherwise, but at least Slater benefitted from a moment of global fame. At the time, Slater had no idea the Monkey Selfie was about to kick off an epic legal battle about copyrights and copyright ownership that would span many years.
For an update on the Monkey Selfie, see our post, Monkey Selfie Legal Battles Continue
For more information on this topic, please visit our Copyright Litigation service page.