Monkey selfie & Commons

[HRIP7]

The other day I posted a link to Newyorkbrad's Signpost op-ed on the monkey selfie on Wikipedia Weekly.

I'm sure it must have been discussed here on WO at the time, but given that it's been a while, and there are some new people here, it's worth another plug. It's good.

[Newyorkbrad]

For what it's worth, I consider Wikipedia/Wikimedia's handling of the "monkey selfies" dispute to be appalling -- if not on a purely legal level, then certainly as a matter of fairness and decency. I've written about this on my wikiblog and in a Signpost article. (In preview, I see that someone just posted a link.)

I find it frustrating how eager some editors are to delete content based on purely theoretical or notional copyright issues, while fighting fiercely to keep and propagate content where the interested party actually wants it deleted and offers compelling grounds to do so.

The PETA lawsuit is, if anything, even more appalling. Their Complaint actually asks that Slater be required to pay damages to the monkey for his use of the photographs.

[Zoloft]

For what it's worth, I consider Wikipedia/Wikimedia's handling of the "monkey selfies" dispute to be appalling -- if not on a purely legal level, then certainly as a matter of fairness and decency. I've written about this on my wikiblog and in a Signpost article. (In preview, I see that someone just posted a link.)

I find it frustrating how eager some editors are to delete content based on purely theoretical or notational copyright issues, while fighting fiercely to keep and propagate content where the interested party actually wants it deleted and offers compelling grounds to do so.

The PETA lawsuit is, if anything, even more appalling. Their Complaint actually asks that Slater be required to pay damages to the monkey for his use of the photographs.

I'm sure that PETA would be glad to act as court guardian for the monkey's interests.

[Rogol Domedonfors]

Then on this issue at least NYB and I are in agreement, and I'm happy to acknowledge that.

[HRIP7]

For what it's worth, I consider Wikipedia/Wikimedia's handling of the "monkey selfies" dispute to be appalling -- if not on a purely legal level, then certainly as a matter of fairness and decency. I've written about this on my wikiblog and in a Signpost article. (In preview, I see that someone just posted a link.)

I find it frustrating how eager some editors are to delete content based on purely theoretical or notational copyright issues, while fighting fiercely to keep and propagate content where the interested party actually wants it deleted and offers compelling grounds to do so.

The PETA lawsuit is, if anything, even more appalling. Their Complaint actually asks that Slater be required to pay damages to the monkey for his use of the photographs.

I'm sure that PETA would be glad to act as court guardian for the monkey's interests.

That's indeed what they've asked for.

The lawsuit filed last year by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sought a court order allowing PETA to represent the monkey and let it to administer all proceeds from the photos for the benefit of the monkey, which it identified as 6-year-old Naruto, and other crested macaques living in a reserve on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

[HRIP7]

I find it frustrating how eager some editors are to delete content based on purely theoretical or notional copyright issues, while fighting fiercely to keep and propagate content where the interested party actually wants it deleted and offers compelling grounds to do so.

There is of course a common element in both – denying someone else what they want.

[Poetlister]

Thanks for that – so the judge has no excuse for entertaining this utterly frivolous case, then.

He might still enjoy the publicity even if he's not elected.

[thekohser]

For what it's worth, I consider Wikipedia/Wikimedia's handling of the "monkey selfies" dispute to be appalling -- if not on a purely legal level, then certainly as a matter of fairness and decency. I've written about this on my wikiblog and in a Signpost article. (In preview, I see that someone just posted a link.)

I find it frustrating how eager some editors are to delete content based on purely theoretical or notional copyright issues, while fighting fiercely to keep and propagate content where the interested party actually wants it deleted and offers compelling grounds to do so.

The PETA lawsuit is, if anything, even more appalling. Their Complaint actually asks that Slater be required to pay damages to the monkey for his use of the photographs.

+1 to Newyorkbrad on this one. Even if his position as "messenger" on the New York Law School Wikiconference decision was terribly disappointing, I have to applaud when it's due.

[Vigilant]

It seems unnecessarily spiteful the way en.wp and commons handled this.

You ruined a good man's livelihood and prospects so you could steal his work... and then laughed at him.

[Mason]

I don't buy out of anger very often, but the way this guy was treated prompted me to order a few pieces from his online store.

Some of those prints make great Christmas presents.

[Kingsindian]

I read the op-ed a few months ago, and found it pretty good.

I don't know much about the topic, but I am still a bit mystified as to why many people on Commons etc. defended keeping the picture. It's possible that they just thought that it was "a nice case to argue about on the internet"(TM) and forgot about wider things.

[Zoloft]

What we see are the acts of entitled anonymous bullies. It's all about control and humiliation. This is a daily behavior on Wikipedia.

It's why some people participate — to be the bullies — and why many don't once they're bullied.

[Textnyymi]

What we see are the acts of entitled anonymous bullies. It's all about control and humiliation. This is a daily behavior on Wikipedia.

Which is not too different from Facebook anyway. I mean, no "secret groups" of people sharing private pictures of other people have been created over at Wikipedia or Commons, right?

[The Adversary]

Daily Mail:
How this magical monkey selfie ruined my life: British wildlife photographer says image published 50 million times cost him his life savings and marked the end of his award-winning career

[Randy from Boise]

Daily Mail:
How this magical monkey selfie ruined my life: British wildlife photographer says image published 50 million times cost him his life savings and marked the end of his award-winning career

Consider the source.

The Daily Mail is one of the most sensationalistic POS newspapers on the planet.

RfB

[Mason]

Consider the source.

The Daily Mail is one of the most sensationalistic POS newspapers on the planet.

I don't think you can really blame the source for this one. It's not really saying anything that The Telegraph didn't, and is mostly quoting Slater himself.

[tarantino]

We should start a gofundme campaign for him.

[The Adversary]

We should start a gofundme campaign for him.

That is actually an excellent idea!

[Poetlister]

Consider the source.

The Daily Mail is one of the most sensationalistic POS newspapers on the planet.

RfB

It's not a reliable source. Wikipedia has said so after a comprehensive discussion involving huge numbers of people.

[tarantino]

We should start a gofundme campaign for him.

That is actually an excellent idea!

After looking into crowdfunding a little bit more, Youcaring looks like the best platform to use. All other sites charge a fee on top of the credit card fee.

[Rogol Domedonfors]

If this fund is to be started in the name of Wikipediocracy, then you will need to be sure that you are ready for your 15 minutes of fame. There will need to be someone to answer press questions, and the website will have to set forth in a simple, easy sound-bite what it is you stand for and want to achieve both by your support for Slater and more generally what the site itends to achieve. You will need to link support for Slater against PETA with a campaign against Wikipedia/Wikimedia. What's that link? How will the busy journo with five minutes to research the story get that? What will the front page of the site look like when the story breaks?

[Zoloft]

We need a nod from Slater too. I'm in favor of this, so we will need all of the above and some names off a list of sympathetic journos. Start with The Register, I expect.

[Rogol Domedonfors]

The UK media such as the Telegraph and Daily Mail will probably be open to refreshing their stories with a new angle.

Has Slater involved his MP? Perhaps they would like to be associated with free publicity this noble cause. Depending on party, it could be either egregious violation of property rights or Yankee imperialist lawyers dictating to animal-loving Brits.

[thekohser]

In the trade news:

10 things you didn’t know about the ‘Monkey Selfie’ case
by Jon Devo
Amateur Photographer (T-H-L)
1 August 2017

My favorite is item #2:

PETA has dubbed the monkey Naruto, but based on the photos they are distributing, David reckons they have the wrong monkey, and indeed the wrong sex of monkey.

[Zoloft]

Slater won his fight against PETA!
linkhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-sout ... s-41235131[/link]

[Kingsindian]

I think it was the likely outcome of the case. No idea why it took 2 years.

I see that the BBC article credits WILDLIFE PERSONALITIES/DAVID J SLATER for the photo.

[Midsize Jake]

I'm going to celebrate by buying my cats their own 50+MP DSLR rig, complete with a super-auto fisheye lens!

[Poetlister]

Slater won his fight against PETA!
linkhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-sout ... s-41235131[/link]

Not a complete victory. He has to donate 25% of his royalties to charity, and it's not clear how much of the costs he must bear. But will Commons keep the photo online? If so, he won't get much royalty payment.

[Newsfeed]

SLATER --> http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ph ... l-11153335
PETA --> https://www.peta.org/blog/settlement-re ... al-rights/
PIERS MORGAN --> [CENSORED]http://www.ok.co.uk/tv/good-morning-bri ... settlement[/censor]

[thekohser]

We already have a thread about this. And the third link appears to redirect to some other landing page. The gist of it may be pulled from this poorly-formatted page.

[Poetlister]

I rather doubt that the poor photographer can claim much of a victory.

[tarantino]

Dana Chivvis interviewed Slater on This American Life.

David went on the offensive, assembled a team of lawyers, studied up on copyright law. He even looked into finding venture capitalists to fund a lawsuit against Wikipedia. Wikimedia-- that's the foundation that owns Wikipedia-- they just gave him the finger. This was at their big conference in London. It's called Wikimania. One of the founders, Jimmy Wales, was there.

David Slater - I soon got to know, from the good Wikipedians out there, that Jimmy Wales and many of the delegates were mocking me by printing out my image on great big boards that were placed all over the conference facility. And Jimmy Wales and various other people were encouraging the delegates to take selfies with my selfie.

Dana Chivvis - That's just mean.

Slater - There's quite a few of these images around the place on the internet, but the one with Jimmy Wales is particularly odious.

Chivvis - Wait. I want to look that up really fast here. Hang on.

Slater - Yeah.

Chivvis - Jimmy Wales monkey selfie.

Slater - Jimmy Wales Wikimania.

Chivvis - Here we go. Oh, yeah. Look at that. If you type Jimmy Wales monkey selfie into the Google, you'll find a photo of an adult male human holding his phone up in one hand and the monkey selfie in the other right next to his face. And he's got his lips puckered up like a duck. He looks ridiculous. Now, is he-- is that face he's making-- is that--

Slater - Well, it's like a duck face. I don't know where that comes from.

Chivvis - I don't either.

Slater - But a lot of people seem to do this duck lips.

Chivvis - How did you feel when you saw that Jimmy Wales selfie with your monkey selfie?

Slater - So angry.

[The Garbage Scow]

I listened to part of the TAL broadcast. It's infuriating. I had to shut it off.

[Renée Bagslint]

The Signpost has a whiny comment on this podcast. The pathetic

the conflict could proceed with the Wikimedia community's sincere attempt to establish mutual understanding and some transparent documentation that we offered a fair process

is particularly emetic.

[Midsize Jake]

The Signpost has a whiny comment on this podcast...

Ugh. Pretty bad, but also typical: "Sure, we act as a hivemind, we look like a hivemind, we never take personal responsibility for anything, we're almost all anonymous and unaccountable, and we even went out of our way to pass a print of this guy's photo around so we could all have 'monkey selfies' showing how arrogant and shitty we all are, but it's just so unfair when people say that the horrible things we do to them are done by 'Wikipedia' instead of one individual user whom we can easily throw under the bus."

[CrowsNest]

If there was ever one thing that could be accurately described as having been "done by Wikipedia", no qualification needed or required, it is this. Hilarious that in their pomposity, they forget that in a few small and crucial areas, like copyright, the WMF do indeed exercise editorial oversight. And naturally, their pravda outlet fails to note why the USCO clarification is not likely to settle the matter, if we assumed Slater had the money to keep fighting "Wikipedia".

[Kumioko]

The Signpost has a whiny comment on this podcast...

Ugh. Pretty bad, but also typical: "Sure, we act as a hivemind, we look like a hivemind, we never take personal responsibility for anything, we're almost all anonymous and unaccountable, and we even went out of our way to pass a print of this guy's photo around so we could all have 'monkey selfies' showing how arrogant and shitty we all are, but it's just so unfair when people say that the horrible things we do to them are done by 'Wikipedia' instead of one individual user whom we can easily throw under the bus."

It is "Wikipedia's" fault because although one individual can do what you say it is the community and the WMF that make up what Wikipedia is and does. It is not one individual but the culture and the mindset that allow the individuals to do stuff like this that gives the entire community and project a bad reputation. Personally I hope for the day when some well funded company or individual sues the holy hell out of some random editor or even the WMF. They don't have to win, all they need to do is gain a lot of bad press towards the projects or to scare the community of editors into realizing that they can be sued. As most of us already know, if that would happen, the WMF would almost certainly leave the editor twisting in the wind to fund and be responsible for the lawsuit. The rest of the community would see that and a lot would probably never edit again for fear of the same thing happening to them. I'm surprised it hasn't already happened in this litigious society we live in but eventually I am certain that it will.

[Poetlister]

Ugh. Pretty bad, but also typical: "Sure, we act as a hivemind, we look like a hivemind, we never take personal responsibility for anything, we're almost all anonymous and unaccountable, and we even went out of our way to pass a print of this guy's photo around so we could all have 'monkey selfies' showing how arrogant and shitty we all are, but it's just so unfair when people say that the horrible things we do to them are done by 'Wikipedia' instead of one individual user whom we can easily throw under the bus."

Wasn't Jimbo himself among those who had a monkey selfie, complete with a silly expression probably intended to imitate a monkey? While some here might be happy to throw Jimbo under a bus, I suspect that the author of that quote would disagree.

[Zoloft]

Ugh. Pretty bad, but also typical: "Sure, we act as a hivemind, we look like a hivemind, we never take personal responsibility for anything, we're almost all anonymous and unaccountable, and we even went out of our way to pass a print of this guy's photo around so we could all have 'monkey selfies' showing how arrogant and shitty we all are, but it's just so unfair when people say that the horrible things we do to them are done by 'Wikipedia' instead of one individual user whom we can easily throw under the bus."

Wasn't Jimbo himself among those who had a monkey selfie, complete with a silly expression probably intended to imitate a monkey? While some here might be happy to throw Jimbo under a bus, I suspect that the author of that quote would disagree.

[Renée Bagslint]

The WMF follow up with a blog post. Two of the statements in it appear to me to be outright and evident lies:

After careful review of copyright law, which is what we do when we get such requests, the Wikimedia Foundation came to the conclusion that the photos were in fact in the public domain, and free to share on Wikimedia sites. (We noted the basis for our decision above). Several copyright experts agreed this was a correct interpretation of the law, and it is also in line with guidance issued by the U.S. Copyright Office.

The Wikimedia movement has great respect for the rights of photographers and content creators around the world.

The linked article on Wikipedia actually quotes a number of experts opinions, the majority of which do not support the conclusion claimed in this blog, and in the very next paragraph quots a description the Wikimania frolics, pictured in this thread, as "tactless gloating".

I think this is one of the most dishonest pronouncements of the WMF that I have seen so far.

[CrowsNest]

The WMF follow up with a blog post. Two of the statements in it appear to me to be outright and evident lies:

After careful review of copyright law, which is what we do when we get such requests, the Wikimedia Foundation came to the conclusion that the photos were in fact in the public domain, and free to share on Wikimedia sites. (We noted the basis for our decision above). Several copyright experts agreed this was a correct interpretation of the law, and it is also in line with guidance issued by the U.S. Copyright Office.

The Wikimedia movement has great respect for the rights of photographers and content creators around the world.

The linked article on Wikipedia actually quotes a number of experts opinions, the majority of which do not support the conclusion claimed in this blog, and in the very next paragraph quots a description the Wikimania frolics, pictured in this thread, as "tactless gloating".

I think this is one of the most dishonest pronouncements of the WMF that I have seen so far.

Someone should really tell the WMF what Wikipedia is, they don't appear to know that it has a disclaimer which explicitly says, do not use it in this fashion.

Slater can be encouraged that they've been stupid enough to do so, his lawyer can use it to demonstrate they lack legal competence, and therefore any statement they make about how the law supports their case, is open to question.

Who knows, perhaps by referencing Wikipedia in this fashion, they're merely trolling Slater now, confident he's so broke he likely no longer even has a lawyer.

Bunch of bastards.

[Poetlister]

The Wikimedia movement has great respect for the rights of photographers and content creators around the world.

To change the subject completely, the lede to Big lie (T-H-L) says: "A big lie (German: große Lüge) is a propaganda technique. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.""

[Poetlister]

The ninth circuit appeals court in San Francisco today affirmed that animals can't hold copyright, but can in theory – but not here – sue humans. Essentially, that leaves Slater asserting ownership of the snap, so if you want to distribute or reuse the snap, get permission or license the rights from the tog himself rather than a wild macaque.

In a sarcastic footnote, the California court gave PETA short shrift, describing the irony of the animal-rights warriors employing "Naruto," as it christened the macaque, "as an unwitting pawn in its ideological goals."

The Register

[Zoloft]

The ninth circuit appeals court in San Francisco today affirmed that animals can't hold copyright, but can in theory – but not here – sue humans. Essentially, that leaves Slater asserting ownership of the snap, so if you want to distribute or reuse the snap, get permission or license the rights from the tog himself rather than a wild macaque.

In a sarcastic footnote, the California court gave PETA short shrift, describing the irony of the animal-rights warriors employing "Naruto," as it christened the macaque, "as an unwitting pawn in its ideological goals."

The Register

Washington Post

[Randy from Boise]

The ninth circuit appeals court in San Francisco today affirmed that animals can't hold copyright, but can in theory – but not here – sue humans. Essentially, that leaves Slater asserting ownership of the snap, so if you want to distribute or reuse the snap, get permission or license the rights from the tog himself rather than a wild macaque.

In a sarcastic footnote, the California court gave PETA short shrift, describing the irony of the animal-rights warriors employing "Naruto," as it christened the macaque, "as an unwitting pawn in its ideological goals."

The Register

Washington Post

Slater, in an email to The Washington Post, said he was “thoroughly delighted” with the outcome of the case and that attorneys’ fees were granted.

Ta daa!

RfB

[Poetlister]

Washington Post

Is the Washington Post reliable? It describes the monkey as "he". However, it seems that the monkey is in fact female.

[Poetlister]

And now, it will be a Hollywood epic!

Which actor is playing the monkey?

[Kumioko]

And now, it will be a Hollywood epic!

Which actor is playing the monkey?

My vote goes to James Alexander, he already looks like a big ape! Or maybe Jimbo could do it, there is a bit of a resemblance.

[Poetlister]

And now, it will be a Hollywood epic!

Which actor is playing the monkey?

My vote goes to James Alexander, he already looks like a big ape! Or maybe Jimbo could do it, there is a bit of a resemblance.

Jimbo? What do people think?

[MadManz]

This shouldn't even be an issue...