Sunday Times 2
Monkey selfie sparks copyright row
View(s):LONDON (AFP) -The Wikimedia Foundation insisted it would not remove from its website a “selfie” taken by a mischievous monkey, despite claims from the British photographer whose camera was used that it breached his copyright.
A screengrab from Wikimedia Commons showing the photograph of the monkey that is in the middle of a copyright furore (SCREENGRAB FROM WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)
David Slater says he is the owner of the photo of the grinning black crested macaque that went viral when he posted it online in 2011, and is threatening to sue Wikimedia for lost earnings of up to $30,000 (22,500 euros).
But the not-for-profit foundation, which oversees Wikipedia among other online resources, refuses to remove the picture from its bank of royalty-free photographs.
“Under US laws, the copyright cannot be owned by a non-human,” Wikimedia spokeswomen Katherine Maher told AFP.
“It doesn’t belong to the monkey, but it doesn’t belong to the photographer either,” she added.
Slater was with a party of Dutch researchers on a small group of Indonesian islands when the curious primates began rummaging through his possessions.
He described how one snatched his camera and began pressing the shutter button, in the process taking a perfectly composed selfie.