

Who holds the copyright to a picture taken by a monkey? - civilian
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/07/18/who-holds-the-copyri.html

======
onan_barbarian
I await the resolution of this problem eagerly, so we can establish a
precedent for the copyright on _code_ written by monkeys.

~~~
techiferous
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s8S7QxpjeY>

------
yason
This discussion is a great point demonstrating the utter absurdity of
copyright itself.

As soon as people start arguing whether the monkey, the monkey owner, or the
photographer has some _rights_ to the photo that was taken, someone ought to
bring in the sanity and everyone's feet back to ground.

Nature itself doesn't seem to reflect on intellectual property: it does so
with physical property. If the monkey had stolen the photographer's picture,
it would make sense to argue that the picture belongs to him and he deserves
to get it back. That's all natural and simply manifests in the photographer no
longer possessing the picture as soon as the monkey had stolen it.

But, for intellectual property there is no natural manifestation that is
observable. There are just endless semantic arguments about what it means to
own rights to something.

In the end, the picture taken by the monkey just _is_. There's nothing more to
that.

~~~
Meai
Your argument broken down goes like this: "If you can't touch it, it isn't
natural, therefore disregard it"

First of all, what is "natural" or not does not matter. What nature does
should not be measure to what we do. I see no reason for that, just because
'nature' has a positive connotation nowadays, doesn't make it a logical end to
strive for. "Natural" is a contrived word, and to further elaborate on this
completely nonsense word and draw consequences like say "it's invalid" or
"it's wrong" because of a self-proclaimed lack of the attribute you call
natural, is even more so not understandable. If I may provoke a comparison,
you argue with the mind of the so called 'pro-life' proponents. That is a very
simplistic view of the world. Just because my idea (=photo e.g) isn't
immediately transferable to physical properties, doesn't mean it's any less
"real" or "natural". If I tell a guy my idea, and he implements it trivially
with huge profit, then the loss is very real to me.

Your naive views translate very well into the last sentence: "the picture
taken by the monkey just is". You don't appear to have any will to solve the
issue at hand. That's like giving up to solve the problem at all.

~~~
hxa7241
It is not about 'nature' as some mystical attribute. It is about the basic
physical limitations of reality.

The restrictions instituted by normal property are grounded in the actual
restrictions of physical reality. The restrictions instituted by 'intellectual
property' have no such grounding.

> If I tell a guy my idea, and he implements it trivially with huge profit,
> then the loss is very real to me.

It is not real at all, and it justifies nothing.

If something is physically taken from you, you lose it -- whether there is any
law or not. If someone else makes money, you lose nothing -- the idea of loss
you present is entirely dependent on _assuming_ there is a law supporting it.
A law cannot be justified by itself; that is circular.

~~~
Meai
See, again you are using a definition of real that suits you. This doesn't
mean it's correct or even that it makes sense. What your argument boils down
to is: "Thoughts are not real". Is that a really a stand that you want to
take?

edit: Maybe I should give you an abundantly clear example of how your
interpretation of reality is wrong: Imagine two businessmen come to you with
the same idea, but you can only give one of them funding. Did the other man
lose anything tangible? No, all that money was never real by your definition.
For him it was hypothetical money. But no one in their right minds would argue
that the second man didn't lose _anything_. The same way software pirates
argue: "We aren't taking away anything. There was never any real money to
begin with." That may be, but they lost the opportunity to make money which is
just as real.

~~~
nate_meurer
You're chasing your own semantic tail here. The point that the parents are
making is that copyright is an artificial subjugation of immaterial goods to
behaviors and laws that naturally apply only to material goods.

Ideas and expressions, _by nature_ , entertain no notion of scarcity.
Copyright is an attempt to artificially introduce scarcity and grant control
to the newly rarefied goods.

This process is, _by nature_ , fraught with contrivance, and thus prone to
abuse and ludicrous corner cases, such as the case where a monkey steals a
guy's camera, and the guy then claims ownership of the monkey's work.

------
Cushman
As one commenter points out, it's actually pretty reasonable to give copyright
to the owner of the camera— Who owns copyright on the abstract art produced
when my Roomba knocks my paints over on the canvas?

Another points out it's not really different from the common practice of
wildlife trap photography; the monkey wasn't "trying" to take a picture, it
just triggered the mechanism accidentally.

Arguing that the owner of the camera shouldn't have copyright because he
didn't intend to take the picture seems highly dangerous to me— you're
throwing out a lot of photography there.

~~~
bluekeybox
Correct. Most people who give a camera to a monkey do so with the intent that
a picture is taken.

Another issue that is often omitted is "selection". Most photographers take
thousands of photos and then choose only a few picks. This selection process
is every bit as creative (if not more) as pointing a camera at some subject
and pressing a button. A picture taken by a monkey is rarely the only picture
-- most of the interesting pictures that were not taken by photographers
themselves are actually the rare few in long series of misses. The fact that a
photographer was smart enough to choose "the one" hit should be rewarded.

Finally, the "copyrightability", believe it or not, is subtly determined by
who the artist is, as was demonstrated countless times by pop art stars such
as Warhol and Lichtenstein. Since we here are gentlemen of precision so to
speak, think of it this way: there is an "intent" factor X which is multiplied
by the "stature" factory Y (meaning stature of the artist/photographer in the
art world -- terribly hard to determine, I know), which results in some
"copyrightability" value Z. It is incredibly unfair to the lesser known
artists of course, but such is the nature of fame and art. It's a winner-
takes-all world.

~~~
icebraining
>Most people who give a camera to a monkey do so with the intent that a
picture is taken.

Not what happened here: "David Slater has already admitted that the monkeys
found a camera he had left out by accident and that he did not have anything
to do with setting up the shot."

>The fact that a photographer was smart enough to choose "the one" hit should
be rewarded.

Then, are the other pictures not copyrighted?

~~~
bluekeybox
> David Slater has already admitted that the monkeys found a camera he had
> left out by accident

But he still picked up the camera. He still decided not to trash the photos.

> are the other pictures not copyrighted?

It's subtle. They are copyrighted of course. However, if you repurpose
someone's work in a way that is completely different from the intended (Andy
Baio's case wasn't different enough, btw), you may claim copyright. See
Richard Prince's Marlboro man.

~~~
joeyh
I was swimming in a river and picked up a rock. I like it's shape. I must own
its copyright! _insanity_

~~~
bluekeybox
Not insanity at all. Look up "found object as art" (Marcel Duchamp's
readymades etc.) The whole concept of art in the 20th century was redefined by
this idea.

Copyrighting ideas is deeply entrenched in contemporary art. As a matter of
fact, contemporary art is entirely about ideas as opposed to craft.

~~~
nate_meurer
Good grief.

Duchamp didn't just pick things up and put them on display. That's not what
Found Art means, and it never has. Duchamp's art depends crucially on his
creative modifications. Same goes for his Dada contemporaries and even moreso
for later surrealists.

How about this: go find yourself a rock, tell some people you own the
copyright on its shape, (or better yet, its "idea" as you say) and tell us how
they respond. Yes, you are allowed to use family members.

    
    
      > As a matter of fact, contemporary art is entirely about ideas as opposed to craft.
    

Dare I ask you to back this one up?

~~~
bluekeybox
> Duchamp didn't just pick things up and put them on display.

The very act of "picking up" is art. As a matter of fact, everything
associated with an artist is art. When an artist farts, it could be considered
art if the artist intended so. Please, don't tell me that those
"modifications" were somehow more important than the very act of
recognizing/curating. Important -- yes perhaps -- but more important than
"picking up"? No.

> Dare I ask you to back this one up?

I spent roughly five years studying contemporary art and it is a very general
conclusion, a piece of "wisdom" so to speak, that I came to through my
experience with contemporary art. I doubt that any single example I bring up
will satisfy you (you will then claim that it's anecdotal evidence). Perhaps
this piece of "wisdom" has been mentioned somewhere by some art critic, but I
don't have any literature at my hand right now, and scouring Google could be
too selective (you can usually confirm anything by performing a Google
search).

Basically, you have to take what I said at face value (or consider how many
years you spent studying art and whether to go along with what I said or come
up with your own piece of wisdom).

~~~
nate_meurer
Wow, so let me get this straight. Anything an artist touches or otherwise
considers qualifies as art. Since any representations of such are immediately
and automatically copyrighted, I am threatened with the prospect that my own
art is inevitably infringing on countless copyrights. Sort of gives new
meaning to the phrase "maximal copyright" doesn't it?

Thankfully, reading the second part of your comment reassures me. It's rare
that I encounter an appeal to authority where the supposed authority is the
party appealing. 5 years of study not withstanding, your comment below about
"anyone who understands art" gives me enough information to properly
categorize your arguments.

~~~
bluekeybox
> Anything an artist touches or otherwise considers qualifies as art.

Not literally, but that's the general gist of it. It all depends on context.

> I am threatened with the prospect that my own art is inevitably infringing
> on countless copyrights.

Look. If you are an artist, not only do you infringe on countless "copyrights"
(have to use quotation marks because I am not talking about literal
copyright), but many other artists also infringe on yours. There.

EDIT: Have to expand a bit on copyright. The reason I wasn't talking about
copyright in a literal way is because art has its own system for dealing with
"copyright" infringement (actually a superior one, one that is closer to how
free market works than to how law works), distinct from legal action. Legal
action usually only comes in when (a) there is significant money involved, (b)
when hard evidence could be readily used, and (c) when dealing with low-end
and mass markets such as popular photography. Hard evidence in art is usually
very difficult to come by (as you might have gathered from my "appeal to own
authority" response). The system for dealing with copying is simply that when
a work is labeled derivative by a large enough number of people in-the-know,
its value in the high-end market evaporates. Most other spheres (e.g. tangible
goods market) don't have such system in place and therefore have to rely on
the legal concept of copyright.

ANOTHER EDIT: Seems like you are a kernel hacker, so my hat is off to you.
Just want to let you know that the concepts we are talking about in art do not
translate well into software (derivative software is still useful, often more
so than what it was derived from, while unoriginal art is just that).

------
tptacek
You so want the answer to this to be "the monkey", but because of our
humanocentric maleocracy, the answer is "nobody".

~~~
orblivion
Well, we don't hand out rights to animals who aren't smart enough to
understand them. The monkey was smart enough to use the camera, I dunno...

~~~
regularfry
Ooh, that's a _dangerous_ line of thought. We certainly _do_ respect rights of
_people_ who aren't smart enough to understand them; we also protect the
welfare of animals in other ways despite their not being able to comprehend
that we generally choose to treat their health and comfort as a "right".

The personhood horizon doesn't lie on a speciation boundary, and "rights" as
extended by us go _much_ further.

------
nicker
At TechDirt <[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110713/11244515079/can-
we...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110713/11244515079/can-we-subpoena-
monkey-why-monkey-self-portraits-are-likely-public-domain.shtml>); they argue
that by default the photos are in the public domain. We don't want to fall
into the trap of assuming everything must have some copyright owner.

------
drallison
Suppose there were an AI program that could write short stories
indistinguishable from those produced by a human. Further assume that the AI
operates independently of any human control and generates stories using rules
it has discovered by "reading" human stories using machine learning. The
creative process used by the machine is not unlike that used by a human. Does
the law preclude stories created in that fashion from being copyright? And if
they can be copyright, who is the author?

~~~
wisty
If a human purposely set the chain in motion, it's presumably the human's. If
you made an AI with no intention to create literature, then its work would be
uncopyrightable (public domain?). That's why your binaries are copyright, but
the monkey's accidental photographs are not.

If you write a chat bot, which interacts with (and learns with) other humans,
it might be more interesting.

------
ZeroGravitas
Nice to see it's already been added to the relevant page on Wikipedia:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaque>

------
yters
The owners who set up the experiment. Or if it's just fooling around with
stuff, then nobody. The monkey isn't capable of rational decision making so it
can't be responsible.

------
zach
Gotta agree the comment on the article by acitrano - they probably do own
copyright to the picture, but to reveal why outside of court would needlessly
undermine the trope which has made it famous.

Indeed, I presume that surfacing "the legal angle" was a motivation for
sending lawyer letters in the first place.

After this press hit and the "bird absconding with camera" video, I'm sure
there are a lot of wheels turning about how to spin another viral play on
animals "stealing" products to use themselves. You won't have to wait long to
see the next one.

------
deathwarmedover
Do Creative Commons licenses cover non-humans?

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
No license covers non-humans in the way I think you're implying, they don't
exist as legal entities in any way that would allow them to the required legal
rights.

(Note I'm not saying that the law doesn't recognise their existence at all -
it obviously does in many ways - just that they don't have the same rights as
a human in terms of making contracts, owning property and so on).

------
evilswan
It's cre-ape-tive commons. :D

~~~
evilswan
Woah - downvote, just because it's not funny! Bit harsh.

~~~
jokermatt999
Attempts at humor typically get downvoted at Hacker News. HN is more
interested in discussion than humor, so it's downvoted as noise.

~~~
evilswan
Point taken.

------
maeon3
Animals won't have rights until we can objectively prove that they are
conscious and sentient just as we are. Probably 20 years or so.

~~~
pavel_lishin
At which point does a critter stop being sentient? I could easily accept a
proof (that I couldn't understand or verify without years of study) claiming
that a chimpanzee is sentient; I doubt I could be convinced that a mouse is
sentient; and the yeast on top of my fridge is certainly not sentient, unless
it mutates into some sort of collective.

~~~
novumordo
>I doubt I could be convinced that a mouse is sentient

Having met plenty of humans and plenty of mice, there are definitely members
of the former who are less sentient than members of the latter.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say exactly, but we should not be judging
the sentience of creatures by the degree of ignorance we have. How would you
react to a proof that the yeast on top of your fridge is indeed sentient?

~~~
pavel_lishin
> we should not be judging the sentience of creatures by the degree of
> ignorance we have.

Considering that we're usually unaware of our degree of ignorance about nearly
everything, this evaluates to "we should not be judging anything since we may
be ignorant about it". Which is obviously bullshit, because it would just put
us in a deadlock about any decision.

And I'd probably be fairly shocked, and then I'd hope that I didn't do
anything to piss it off, or to infringe on any rights I would presume it to
have - which I would assume to be the same ones that I have.

