Reply to post: Nah

Cracking copyright law: How a simian selfie stunt could make a monkey out of Wikipedia

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Nah

It's entirely clear that *I* own the copyright because...uh...DMCA? Seriously, though: I can understand those of you wanting to recognize Mr. Slater's effort with copyright protection. But can't we also agree this is very much an edge case where reasonable people can disagree? Let's say I went to great effort to sneak a camera in an astronauts personal bag (without breaking laws) on a flight to the ISS. And let's say for whatever reason said astronaut does use the discovered camera to take a selfie. Do I get a copyright because I put a lot of effort into getting the camera into the bag in the first place? Maybe...but I say no. The button masher gets the ownership. What if I set the camera to fire as soon as it was picked up at an appropriate angle and I scored a selfie that way? Then *I* took the picture, albeit indirectly, and so I own it. If you want to argue simians are equivalent to an automated mechanism, maybe that works in court but I don't buy it. What if I gave cameras to an isolated tribe of humans with no experience of cameras and they took some selfies. Do I own it because they're unaware and therefore are undeserving of equal protection under the law? What if I left a dozen cameras around the city and they were all picked up and used for selfies and other people published them. Do I still own copyright because they were my cameras, my idea?

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