How about telling the truth and not manipulating the description of the events to suit his own ends.
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Seem to align is not the same thing as aligning. This guy has apparently explicitly stated that he did not intend to have the monkeys use his cameras, and in fact he was trying to avoid having the monkeys doing this. Until it happened, at which time he retroactively āintended to do thatā.
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I have changed my mind on this picture. The photographer claims he put the camera out on a tripod for the monkey to play with in hopes of them hitting the shutter. Seems like a risky decision but its not like the monkey can tell another version.
Given the role of accident in art, and given how much work essentially is like your example, and given that all that work does, in fact, have copyright, Iām not convinced. If the photographer in this case had been using a film camera, thereād be no doubt whatsoever that the copyright was his. Had he set up a camera with a trip-trigger, and accidentally caught a picture of the monkey, thereād be no doubt the copyright was his.
So has the photographer - the later claims of how things happen are different from the earlier ones.
All art work done by humans does (unless they explicitly give it up, although thatās often a complicated process and may be impossible in some jurisdictions), assuming that work was done before the thing fell OUT of copyright (Disneyās efforts notwithstanding, copyright is not permanent so there are plenty of examples of art work by humans that have no copyright), but thatās a far cry from all work. In the Hoth poop-blanket example, the work was done by a bunch of birds with no human intent involved. No copyright attaches. If a lightning bolt slams into a tree and splits the tree in half and in one half of the tree is burned a perfect image of Rob Ford smoking crack with Hitler, no copyright exists for that image, nor should it. A copyright might exist if somebody took a picture of the tree, sureā¦ and similarly, if this dude took a picture of a monkey taking a selfie, he would have copyright on THAT picture, but not the selfie itself.
In this case, this was not a work by a human, or a natural phenomenon, itās a work by a monkey. If you want to assert copyright rights by animals, great, but I donāt believe itās been settled (I did a quick google to see if Koko The Gorillaās paintings have been judged to be copyrighted by Koko, but I couldnāt find any information either way), and even if it was, that doesnāt improve the photographerās case, only the monkeyās. The photographer has no standing to sue for copyright infringements on somebody elseās work, only the monkey or a guardian ad litem for him (though I imagine it could be convincingly argued that, unlike Koko, the monkey in this case had no idea he was engaged in artistic work or any kind because he didnāt understand what the camera does, he was just fiddling with a box).
I donāt see how that follows. It seems to me to be exactly the same situation. (Unless youāre considering that physically developing the film makes it his art, in which case people who worked at 1 hour photo booths the world over own a lot of copyrights).
And if he took a picture of a monkey himself, thereād be no doubt the copyright was his. Thatās not what happened. He didnāt take the picture. He didnāt intend to take a picture of something else and it happened to catch a monkey. He had the camera stolen from him and, what limited intent happened to be involved in the creation of the picture, it was all on the monkey, none on him.
The only intent he had was to happen to be in the area. Thatās not enough. If I have a birthday party and you sing to me there, and somebody else films it and it goes viral, I donāt get a copyright on your performance just because you wouldnāt have been in a position to sing right there and the other guy wouldnāt have been in a position to film without it being my birthday.
All of this of course, is assuming the first version of his story is true, not the second. And I donāt know the truth of the matter, but as a matter of practicality, Iām personally going to believe the story that he came up with when he didnāt realize that his chance to make money on it depended on the exact circumstances of how it happened (especially since itās just my opinion at stake and Iām not actually legally deciding the issue). If he lied, he may still gain copyright because people believe him, but it would be a fraud.
The thing about art is that the acts of selecting an image (whether its a photograph or āfound artā of some kind) and framing it as art are considered sufficient to make it oneās own. As the large number of artists who work that way can attest.
Had it been film, if nothing else the photographer would have been in possession of a physical image that was unambiguously his. Because itās digital, we can pretend that the monkey was somehow responsible for taking the image, selecting the image, and present it as a photograph. It didnāt - it pressed a button, but it took a human being to select that image, do whatever image processing was required and present it in the form of a photograph.
Mechanically thereās no difference if the monkey tripped a trigger to take the picture or pressed the button. The photographer placed the equipment such that the situation was made possible. Importantly, the monkey canāt have copyright, so thereās no other entity that can make a claim to the image.
There are a number of artists who rely on various animals to construct the actual work - no one has yet suggested that the animals actually own it. Accident is very much a part of art-making, and intention doesnāt really come into it. Something falls on a canvas in an unexpected way; a photographer takes a picture of one thing but realizes that something happening in a corner of the image, previously unnoticed, was far more interesting, etc. Even if the camera shutter was malfunctioning and randomly snapping pictures as it was being carried around, the photographer unaware of what was going on, the photos would still be his.
How ironic that a history of artists who sought to question notions of authorship is now being put into use to argue in favor ofā¦ an individualās ownership.
I think you may be oversimplifying the cultural discourse on this issue and how it relates to the legal issueāin the case of appropriation, not at all, because while wholesale appropriation may be understood as a tool in the production of new artwork, it certainly doesnāt transfer copyright.
Well, when you raise questions, it often results in answers.
Iām absolutely oversimplifying, grossly.
The thing about appropriation is that it usually relies on appropriating something made by some other person, that is, something for which there are already issues of creative ownership and intentionality.
Damn, that monkey didnāt even miss a beat.
I am not sure. He just gave a longer version of the story on NPR than is included here or on the linked article. In the longer version he says he set up the camera and let the monkeys play with it with the intent of them maybe taking some pictures while here that intent isnāt included.
Maybe his lawyer told him to add that bit.
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