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If a monkey takes a selfie in the forest, who owns the copyright?
- forca 12y agoThe man who brought the camera. The monkey cannot legally own things, copyrights or other, so the man owns the photos. 10 years ago this would not even come up. Why have we gotten so "feel good" of late? Life is not unicorns and glitter and nor should it be.
- visakanv 12y agoInteresting! Are mentally disabled people also unable to legally own things?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- erkose 12y agoSuppose instead of a monkey, a human stole the camera and activated the shutter. Who would own the copyright in this scenario? I assume the thief. The consequence of this assumption is that the camera owner is not the copyright owner. The monkey may not be endowed with ownership rights, but this does not mean that the camera owner receives these rights. Instead, no-one owns the copyright, and by "no-one" I mean everyone.
- DanBC 12y agoWhat if an artist leaves a cheap camera chained to a bench with a note saying "Take photos of yourself!". Who owns the copyright there? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/238859335/leaving-a-disposable-camera-in-the-park https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/238859335/leaving-a-dis... http://laughingsquid.com/new-york-shots-leaving-a-disposable-camera-in-the-park-project/ http://laughingsquid.com/new-york-shots-leaving-a-disposable...
- erkose 12y agoI'm not a lawyer. There may be an implied transfer of rights in the "Take photos of yourself! [for my project]".
- benwen 12y agoAnyone else reminded by this NYT Magazine article about a legal team suing on behalf of a chimpanzee for his freedom? http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/27/magazine/the-rights-of-man-and-beast.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/27/magazine/the-rights-of-man... http://www.nonhumanrightsproject.org http://www.nonhumanrightsproject.org Maybe after Lessig is done with the Mayday PAC he can opine on non-human IP rights?
- benwen 12y agoAlso, makes one wonder about copyright ownership of the random strings and sonnets produced by those infinite monkeys typing [0]. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem