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by SilasX 456 days ago
It always felt to me like the photographer was trying to have it both ways there:

"Whoa! Isn't this sooo trippy! A monkey showing self-awareness to take a picture of itself!"

Courts: "Okay, the monkey took it, so no copyright for you."

"No, you don't get it! I put in a ton of work to stage that to the point that the monkey just had to be in the right place at the right time. Hell, a worm could have triggered it!"
1 comments
lesuorac 456 days ago
I'm not sure where you arrived at that conclusion.

The photographer has been claiming the entire time it's his copyright while other people (namely PETA) have been arguing the monkey should have it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...

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SilasX 456 days ago
You missed that the selling point of the picture is the supposed self awareness and intent involved in the monkey taking a selfie?

Yes, of course the author has always wanted the copyright. But the whole reason the picture has value contradicts the basis for that copyright claim. You can’t simultaneously say that you did all the work, and that it’s so cool to see a genuine, self-directed monkey selfie.

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lesuorac 456 days ago
From his blog in 2011 [1].

> I put my camera on a tripod with a very wide angle lens, settings configured such as predictive autofocus, motorwind, even a flashgun, to give me a chance of a facial close up if they were to approach again for a play. I duly moved away and bingo, they moved in, fingering the toy, pressing the buttons and fingering the lens.

> ...

> They played with the camera until of course some images were inevitably taken!

Afaik, he has never taken the position that the monkey did any more work besides just hitting the button. He just didn't contest news articles overly stating the role of the monkey. There's also a significant amount of photos taken definitely by him on the same blog post so it's not like the purpose of the blog post is the monkey photo.

[1]: http://www.djsphotography.co.uk/Tropical%20Forests/Sulawesi%...

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SilasX 456 days ago
It doesn't sound like you're disputing my core point, that he's

- trying to benefit (financially) from the unrebutted presumption that the picture shows the monkey's self-awareness and understanding that it's taking a selfie

while also

- trying to benefit (in the courts) from the diametrically opposite position that the picture shows no such thing because of how staged it is.

Thus, "trying to have it both ways".

If your point is just that I shouldn't have represented the subtext of his marketing as an actual quote, while it's okay to do that for the argument he made in the courts ... sure, point conceded.

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