July 23, 2011: Monkey takes its own pic (and who gets the copyright?)

[Undertoad]

Meet the crested black macaque in Indonesia, who stole the camera of photographer David Slater and took these shots himself.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...p-himself.html

The primate went to investigate the equipment before becoming fascinated with his own reflection in the lens.

And it wasn't long before the crested black macaque hijacked the camera and started snapping away sending award-winning photographer David Slater bananas.

David, 46, said: "One of them must have accidentally knocked the camera and set it off because the sound caused a bit of a frenzy.

"The sound got his attention and he kept pressing it. At first it scared the rest of them away but they soon came back - it was amazing to watch.

"He must have taken hundreds of pictures by the time I got my camera back, but not very many were in focus. He obviously hadn't worked that out yet.

Ah but Mr. Slater... your credit is listed on the photo at the Telegraph, even though you admit the shot is not yours. So I feel fine "stealing" this shot for IotD.

And in fact, the photo credit is disputed at TechDirt:

As we noted, it seems pretty clear that under copyright law in the US and the UK, the photograph is in the public domain. They were not created by a human. The creative inputs into the image were not made by a human. There is no copyright on those images. And yet, Slater apparently licensed them to Caters News Agency, who sent us a takedown request. We stand by our assertion that the images are in the public domain, and even if they're not, our use is covered by fair use rules within copyright law.

Well let them come after us. We bite.