Say Cheese....
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2014 6:03 pm
The Wikipedia Critics' Forum
https://wikipediocracy.com/forum/
[...] The open rights crowd, predictably, have taken up arms on behalf of the monkey, belittling the photographer’s claims and making legal pronouncements on the basis that the image is in the “public domain". We’ve been here before with the open rights mob – that crowd we’re supposed to believe is so wise it will steer us no wrong – whose interests just happened to be aligned with those of massive organisations. They marched to defend Google, too, when the content-free ad network tried to hoover up the world’s books for itself. Nine years ago, Google started scanning 20 million library books for its Library Project just because it could. Defenders saw this as some massive work of public good – a public service, digitising precious works and making them available to the masses.
But the Association of American Publishers and the American Society of Media Photographers took exception, as Google had started scanning works that were still under copyright. They took Google to court in separate legal disputes. In its final settlement, Google was forced to let copyright owners of books scanned by Google opt out of the programme. Yet Google was also given the unique right to digitise and make money from "orphan works," titles whose rights are controlled by authors and publishers who have yet to come forward. Here’s how Google’s director of content partnerships Tom Turvey justified the scanning: “If a work is truly orphaned, by definition it has no copyright owner to ‘opt out’ of the database.” There’s plenty to disagree with in that sentence and to be said about transfer of ownership. But the biggest issue is Google – a massive commercial operation that’s answerable to shareholders – distributing orphaned works for which it need not pay. The Google library project achieves three things: search traffic, ads against returns of search sold for money, and ads against the book. [...]
We already live with apes. The issue here is that if governments were actually functional, instead of the travesty they are now after being mostly captured by massively-wealthy corporate and criminal organizations, they might be able to produce rational, workable rulings on the legal status of semi-intelligent primates, including ownership (or non-ownership) of intellectual property they might create, with or without human facilitation. Instead, they have abdicated their responsibility in this and many other areas, leaving a situation where de facto jurisdiction winds up in the hands of anonymous goons on websites like Wikipedia, the internet in general, and the corporate-controlled media. And of course, for those people, the rights, the livelihood, and/or the reputation of any one person who wants something that's contrary to their agenda is of no consequence whatsoever.Johnny Au wrote:We will inevitably live with apes.
That might be a new level of assholery even for them!Hex wrote:Wikipedians have been doing "a thing" at Wikimania where they make a derivative work of David Slater's stolen photograph with themselves in it. I will leave it up to you to coin your own captions for this one.
It's quite easy to tell the difference from Flickr. Flickr is responsible; it allows you to hide images unsuitable for children so people can only see them if they are logged in. It lets you delete photos you've uploaded if you want to, with no discussion. It allows you to specify NC and ND licences. It even lets you make it harder (though of course not impossible) for others to download your pictures.Johnny Au wrote:Soon enough, Wikimedia Commons would be indistinguishable from Flickr or Imgur.
That's useful. Some people will cheer and giggle, but there will be enough who see it for the juvenile prank that it is and will feel disgusted. Not very loving and thoughtful, is it?SB_Johnny wrote:That might be a new level of assholery even for them!Hex wrote:Wikipedians have been doing "a thing" at Wikimania where they make a derivative work of David Slater's stolen photograph with themselves in it. I will leave it up to you to coin your own captions for this one.
No, it's not. Jimbo is a pig.HRIP7 wrote:That's useful. Some people will cheer and giggle, but there will be enough who see it for the juvenile prank that it is and will feel disgusted. Not very loving and thoughtful, is it?SB_Johnny wrote:That might be a new level of assholery even for them!Hex wrote:Wikipedians have been doing "a thing" at Wikimania where they make a derivative work of David Slater's stolen photograph with themselves in it. I will leave it up to you to coin your own captions for this one.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Jury, the WMF refuses to delete the images in question and alleges that " U.S. law means that ‘non-human authors’ do not have the right to automatic copyright of any photographs that they take". It is a wrong interpretation of the law.
First we need to respond this question: is a person who takes an image always a copyright holder of this image? No, it is not the case. Here's one example: let's say a human thief steals somebody's camera and takes some pictures. Would that human thief hold copyrights on the pictures he took with a stolen camera? Of course no. Here we have a similar situation. The photographer did not willingly give the camera to the monkey. The monkey stole the camera, which means that the U.S. law that ‘non-human authors’ do not have the right to automatic copyright of any photographs that they take, does not apply in this case. In other words in this particular situation in order to take the pictures the monkey violated the law, and therefore another law cannot be applied to protect his/her copyrights and/or the absence of such. The images were taken with the stolen property (the camera) and therefore belong to the photographer.
Wikipedians would unquestionably argue the opposite of that, which is to say that the thief would hold the copyright on such images. Is there any precedent in US or UK/Commonwealth case law for this, either way?neved wrote:First we need to respond this question: is a person who takes an image always a copyright holder of this image? No, it is not the case. Here's one example: let's say a human thief steals somebody's camera and takes some pictures. Would that human thief hold copyrights on the pictures he took with a stolen camera? Of course no.
Of course, if the folks who decided this had any background in copyright and/or IP law (more than just being able to spout random acronyms), this wouldn't even be an issue. Shit, you could even work this out with an art history degree. How is this picture any different from Duchamp's urinal? I don't want to start a debate on that work's merits or anything, but the idea that this picture is anything other than a 'found object' in that sense is off the mark.neved wrote:I believe the photographer has a case. If I were his attorney, I would have argued the case like this:
Ladies and gentlemen of the Jury, the WMF refuses to delete the images in question and alleges that " U.S. law means that ‘non-human authors’ do not have the right to automatic copyright of any photographs that they take". It is a wrong interpretation of the law.
First we need to respond this question: is a person who takes an image always a copyright holder of this image? No, it is not the case. Here's one example: let's say a human thief steals somebody's camera and takes some pictures. Would that human thief hold copyrights on the pictures he took with a stolen camera? Of course no. Here we have a similar situation. The photographer did not willingly give the camera to the monkey. The monkey stole the camera, which means that the U.S. law that ‘non-human authors’ do not have the right to automatic copyright of any photographs that they take, does not apply in this case. In other words in this particular situation in order to take the pictures the monkey violated the law, and therefore another law cannot be applied to protect his/her copyrights and/or the absence of such. The images were taken with the stolen property (the camera) and therefore belong to the photographer.
"Call for Pricasso...Pricasso, please check your messages..."thekohser wrote:
True, you could also argue that context and intent are the key ingredients of an artistic work, which is to say that the monkey wasn't actually trying to take a photograph so much as he was just playing with the camera like any other toy-like object, and it was the photographer's idea (not the monkey's) to treat the resulting photos as creative works in themselves. But I don't think you can simply overlook the fact that the monkey is a living creature with a brain, either - the counterargument (favored by WPers) will always be that the monkey is just as capable of creating an "accident" as the photographer is, and that an accident is just as artistically viable, contextually, as any other means of taking a photograph.AL1 wrote:How is this picture any different from Duchamp's urinal? I don't want to start a debate on that work's merits or anything, but the idea that this picture is anything other than a 'found object' in that sense is off the mark.
Well,there are laws about stolen property. It is reasonable to assume that, if it is illegal to receive stolen property (and it is), it is also illegal to receive goods (images in this case) that were made by means of stolen property.Midsize Jake wrote:Wikipedians would unquestionably argue the opposite of that, which is to say that the thief would hold the copyright on such images. Is there any precedent in US or UK/Commonwealth case law for this, either way?neved wrote:First we need to respond this question: is a person who takes an image always a copyright holder of this image? No, it is not the case. Here's one example: let's say a human thief steals somebody's camera and takes some pictures. Would that human thief hold copyrights on the pictures he took with a stolen camera? Of course no.
I used to think The New Yorker was a serious publication. Now, when I pick up a copy in some physician's waiting room, I find it full of thoughtless fluff like the above.In the nineteen-twenties, F. W. Champion, a British photographer, adventurer, and officer in the Imperial Forestry Service, developed a novel way to photograph India’s wildlife population. With the help of a tame elephant named Balmati, Champion roved the forests of India. When he found a well-travelled tiger route, he would set up a camera rigged up with trip wires, and leave it there overnight. (As Champion wrote in his book “With a Camera in Tiger-Land,” “pictures of tigers by daylight are not truly representative of such nocturnal beasts.”) When an unsuspecting beast would duff the line, the camera’s shutter and a flash bulb would go off, creating what might today be called an animal selfie. [...] In 2011, Slater was visiting a park in Indonesia when a crested black macaque got a hold of one of his cameras. “They were quite mischievous, jumping all over my equipment,” Slater told the Telegraph, “and it looked like they were already posing for the camera when one hit the button.” The result was hundreds of macaque selfies. The best of the images—a female macaque grinning toothily into the lens—went viral shortly thereafter, inspiring hundreds of memes and online jokes before the monkey, sadly, went the way of the Dramatic Squirrel.
This week, the grinning monkey selfie returned to the news when Wikimedia, the nonprofit organization behind Wikipedia, refused Slater’s request to take the photos down from Wikimedia Commons, an online repository of free images. According to Wikimedia’s Web site, anyone who downloads the monkey selfie, or any of the millions of images on the site, can “copy, use and modify any files here freely as long as they follow the terms specified by the author; this often means crediting the source and author(s) appropriately and releasing copies/improvements under the same freedom to others.” If Slater, as the photographer, had said that he wanted the photos taken down, Wikimedia most likely would have complied. The question that arose was whether Slater, who had not held the camera, set up the shot, or pressed the shutter, could be considered the photographer at all. Wikimedia’s position on this was clear: in the licensing conditions found at the bottom of the grinning monkey selfie, they write, “This file is in the public domain because (and the rest is in bold) as the work of a non-human animal, it has no human author in whom copyright is vested.” [...] In the most basic and, perhaps, most outdated reading of United States copyright law, whoever pushes the button on the camera owns the copyright to the image produced, which means that if tourists ask you take a photo of them at the Hoover Dam, and you happen to hit the shutter button at the exact moment that Kanye West goes flying by strapped to a jet pack, you, as the photographer, would get to sell that image to TMZ. The tourists do not get credit for asking you to take the photo, or for owning the camera on which it was taken. [...]
All this has been complicated by the advent of surveillance cameras, smart phones, and, perhaps most relevantly, large-scale photography projects for which assistants often press the shutter button on work that will be attributed to their boss. Slater seems to be thinking along those lines. He claims that buying the cameras, spending thousands of pounds to transport himself to Indonesia, and performing the act of neglect that allowed the monkeys to steal his cameras entitles him to full authorship of the image, regardless of who pushed the button. “In law, if I have an assistant then I still own the copyright,” he told the “Today” show. “I believe there’s a case to be had that the monkey was my assistant.” [...] In the introduction to “With a Camera in Tiger-Land,” Champion thanks his elephant, who carried him and his cameras through the forest and kept him company while he set up his shots. “What merit there may be in the pictures illustrating this book is largely due to two factors,” he writes. “The help of that splendid cow elephant, Balmati, who is frequently mentioned in the text, and to the excellent flashlight apparatus invented by Mr. Nesbit, of New York.” [...] In the case of Mr. Slater and the macaques, the roles of the human and the beast have been reversed. [...]
I do believe we have discovered the dumbest person in the world.Mancunium wrote:
Who do you think is responsible for what happens in this video: the chimpanzee with the loaded AK-47, or the soldier who gave him the weapon?
*cough*Randy from Boise wrote:I do believe we have discovered the dumbest person in the world.Mancunium wrote:
Who do you think is responsible for what happens in this video: the chimpanzee with the loaded AK-47, or the soldier who gave him the weapon?
Remember: automatic rifles with full clips and their safeties off don't kill people — chimpanzees do!
RfB
Awww, I was gonna go with a Planet of the Apes joke, too...Zoloft wrote:*cough*Randy from Boise wrote:I do believe we have discovered the dumbest person in the world.Mancunium wrote:
Who do you think is responsible for what happens in this video: the chimpanzee with the loaded AK-47, or the soldier who gave him the weapon?
Remember: automatic rifles with full clips and their safeties off don't kill people — chimpanzees do!
RfB
This was a viral fake promotional video for the movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
A wildlife photographer says he will take on Wikimedia, the company behind Wikipedia, in a copyright row over a monkey "selfie." David Slater says he spent three days in Indonesia with monkeys so that they would get used to him. He then set up his camera so that the endangered Macaca nigra could self-operate it. One did creating a number of images, one of which showed the animal smiling into the camera. The images were published and paid for but a row has broken out once it appeared on the web encyclopaedia's site to illustrate the endangered crested black macaque species. Mr Slater asked Wikipedia either paid for the use of the image or remove. But their argument was and remains that as the monkey pressed the button to take the picture, and because the image is now on the internet in the public domain that it is free to use. Report by Ashley Fudge.
I think it is even worse than just taunting Mr. Slater.Triptych wrote:Here's an archival link from Marxisthistory.org (and kudos to whomever directly linked it in the other thread) that is a broader view of Jimbo at the moment he took the selfie with the Macaque photo, in which I really think he is taunting Mr. Slater the photographer.
https://archive.today/9lCoQ
May it be presented as evidence of malice should Slater actually bring his case to trial.
David Slater, the photographer who is currently embroiled in an argument (and quite possibly, soon to be embroiled in a lawsuit) with Wikimedia over the famous ‘monkey selfie’ images, recently spoke to ITN to clarify his position on the whole ‘who owns the copyright’ argument.
After receiving “a lot of free advice,” it looks like he’s leaning more and more towards taking Wikimedia to court over the controversy.
[...]
Once the geek army returns home from London in a few days.EricBarbour wrote:Anyone care to take bets on when David Slater (photographer) will get a Wikipedia article? (When you type in David Slater (T-H-L), you get a semi-obscure country singer.)
I suspect it depends on whether he wins his case. If he does, there will ceertainly be an awful article; if he loses, he will be of no importance.thekohser wrote:Once the geek army returns home from London in a few days.EricBarbour wrote:Anyone care to take bets on when David Slater (photographer) will get a Wikipedia article? (When you type in David Slater (T-H-L), you get a semi-obscure country singer.)
I suspect the WMF will settle out of court if they're sued over this. This is not the case they want to go to trial with - it's going to make them look pretty bad, and they'll probably lose, too. My guess is they'll pay the guy something in the mid-five figures, one or two of the photos will remain in the public domain, and there will be an agreement between the parties that no wrongdoing occurred.Poetlister wrote:I suspect it depends on whether he wins his case. If he does, there will ceertainly be an awful article; if he loses, he will be of no importance.
Peanuts I expect, maybe a few of me if he gets lucky ...Poetlister wrote:I want to know how much the monkey is getting in royalties.
I know, right...Poetlister wrote:I want to know how much the monkey is getting in royalties.
This is what Slater was quoted as saying in that article, published 5 July 2011, i.e. two days before the copyright spat with Techdirt began:[...] However, copyright law may be on Slater's side if, as he claims, he set up the shoot, even though he didn't physically fire the shutter, according to one copyright expert.
Slater says that, at one stage, a monkey did steal the camera and run away with it, but he claims the picture in question was taken after he had set it up on his tripod.
Legal argument
Whether or not he set up the shoot could be key to any ensuing legal battle, says photography rights lawyer Charles Swan.
Swan told Amateur Photographer (AP): ‘European copyright law requires a photograph to be the author's "own intellectual creation".
‘In simple terms, the author has to leave his "mark" on the image.
‘If a photographer sets up a shot, selecting the background etc, with some mechanism (eg. infrared or shutter release) for an animal to trigger the photograph, that is more likely to be considered an original artistic work with the photographer as the author.
‘If he has set up the picture and the monkey has just clicked the shutter, then that could be his copyright, if the resulting picture is what he set up.
‘Who releases the shutter is neither here nor there in that scenario.
‘It's all down to whether it's your picture, or a random picture taken by a monkey - which means there's no copyright at all.'
Monkey 'played' with shutter release
In 2011, Slater revealed to AP that the shot (one of a series) was - contrary to recent media reports - taken three years before the story hit the headlines that year.
He had been using a Canon EOS 5D DSLR camera with a wideangle zoom lens, set on aperture priority mode (at an aperture of f/8).
Speaking last night, Slater told AP: ‘I wanted a close-up image but I couldn't do it. They were too nervous so I had to get them [the monkeys] to come to the camera without me being there and get them to play with the release, which they did.
‘They were looking at the reflection in the lens which they found amusing...'
Asked whether he gave the remote shutter release to the monkey in the hope it would eventually take a picture, Slater replied, ‘Yeah, I could see that potential.'
In 2011, Slater said the primates had begun playing around with the remote shutter release as he was trying to fend off other monkeys.
Chris Cheesman, Amateur Photographer, PHOTOGRAPHER STRIKES CASH DEAL OVER MONKEY ‘SELFIE’ (UPDATE)A photographer who says he witnessed monkeys taking pictures of themselves, tells Amateur Photographer (AP) that much of the media coverage has been exaggerated.
Wildlife photographer David Slater today played down newspaper reports that suggest a bunch of Indonesian monkeys grabbed his camera and began taking self-portraits.
And he revealed that the shots, featuring the endangered crested black macaque monkey, were taken three years ago.
Speaking to AP, David explained that his camera had been mounted on a tripod when the primates began playing around with a remote ‘cable release’ as he was trying to fend off other monkeys.
The photographer is keen to stress that the monkeys ‘didn’t run off with the camera or anything like that’.
Commenting on today’s media coverage of the pictures David said: ‘There has been a slight exaggeration.’ Though he added: ‘They haven’t been Photoshopped or anything like that… The monkeys were grabbing the camera. They accidentally took the shots.’
David, from Gloucestershire, explained that he had been using a Canon EOS 5D DSLR camera with a wideangle zoom lens.
The 5D was set on aperture priority mode (at an aperture of f/8).
David, 46, said the story emerged only recently when a news agency stumbled across images from a trip he had made to Sulawesi, an island in Indonesia.
Note that the 4 July 2011 article in The Guardian, the first quality newspaper to cover the story (which they did interview Slater for) also mentioned the tripod set-up, and that Slater observed the monkeys engaging with the camera for some time.Photographer David Slater, who says he lost thousands after Wikipedia allowed free access to the monkey photo, is set to earn money from the image that will also go towards conservation of the animal.
Amateur Photographer has learned that the Gloucestershire photographer has struck a deal with Picanova, a German printing company that plans to give away a canvas print of the monkey, worth £27.40, to anyone visiting its website.
Slater says a ‘significant percentage' of what he receives from Picanova will go towards the animal's conservation.
Picanova has pledged to donate £1 to a Sulawesi black macaques conservation project for every print ordered.
Picanova benefits by increasing its potential customer base through visits to the site.
The money will go to Selamatkan Yaki (Indonesian for 'Save the Sulawesi crested black macaques'), according to Picanova.
Meanwhile, Slater continues to be embroiled in a copyright battle with Wikipedia.
‘We are trying to support what [Slater] is trying to do,' said Phil Norris, head of international sales at Picanova.
'Solidarity'
Norris said Picanova wants to ‘show solidarity with photographers around the world' over the issue, which may end up in court.
‘As a canvas print company, we work with thousands of photographers and purchase licensed photographs for our business.
'Therefore, this legal spat completely resonates with us. We appreciate how far-reaching the ripples of this legal battle will be, as well as the effect on the livelihoods of our friends in the photography community.'
Last week Slater said he had lost thousands of pounds in potential sales of the image, as a direct result of Wikipedia's actions, adding that it was 'hard to put a figure on'.
In the year after the image was publicised, in 2011, Slater says he earned £1,000 from the agency that ran the story, and £1,000 through print sales.
‘In the past two years I've made about £50. Nobody is interested because it is free...' he told AP. [...]
Anyone wanna bet that individuals get subpoenaed?Randy from Boise wrote:This picture is going to be very lucrative for the photographer, let there be no mistake. He just needs to play his cards carefully and correctly.
WMF will pay him a small pile of cash to settle, but that's only part of it. If he's gracious in victory, David Slater's gonna end up a "name."
WMF does need to have this one shoved up their ass sideways — their legal argument is asinine and they've given the word a dictionary-perfect definition of hubris with their arrogant bullying.
RfB
Alexander Kerdman, Assistant General Counsel at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, AKA adminstrator Y (T-C-L), Crzrussian (T-C-L) and NYC_JD (T-C-L), misappropriated the image to decorate his user page.Vigilant wrote:Anyone wanna bet that individuals get subpoenaed?Randy from Boise wrote:This picture is going to be very lucrative for the photographer, let there be no mistake. He just needs to play his cards carefully and correctly.
WMF will pay him a small pile of cash to settle, but that's only part of it. If he's gracious in victory, David Slater's gonna end up a "name."
WMF does need to have this one shoved up their ass sideways — their legal argument is asinine and they've given the word a dictionary-perfect definition of hubris with their arrogant bullying.
RfB
I cached those three links at Archive.today just in case things start disappearing. Here're Y (https://archive.today/bEfxK), Drmies (oops, I actually don't see it there) and the annoyingly long-named "Future_Perfect_at_Sunrise" (https://archive.today/JTPDU).tarantino wrote:Alexander Kerdman, Assistant General Counsel at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, AKA adminstrator Y (T-C-L), Crzrussian (T-C-L) and NYC_JD (T-C-L), misappropriated the image to decorate his user page.
It's also misappropriated by the administrators Michel Aaij AKA Drmies (T-C-L) and Lukas Pietch AKA Future Perfect at Sunrise (T-C-L).
* 03:59, 22 February 2007 Redux (talk | contribs) blocked Crzrussian (talk | contribs) (anon. only, autoblock disabled) with an expiry time of indefinite (Per user request. Abandoning account.)
* 04:33, 7 August 2006 Crzrussian (talk | contribs) unblocked Crzrussian (talk | contribs)
* 04:28, 7 August 2006 Fred Bauder (talk | contribs) blocked Crzrussian (talk | contribs) with an expiry time of 24 hours (Personal attack (rather nasty one))
* 19:59, 25 June 2006 Cyde (talk | contribs) unblocked Crzrussian (talk | contribs) (I didn't realize you were a sysop .. .but please stop the spamming :-()
* 19:58, 25 June 2006 Cyde (talk | contribs) blocked Crzrussian (talk | contribs) with an expiry time of 1 hour (Stop talk page spamming)
It's his life and his livelihood and his lawyers but if he realizes his lawsuit is winnable and particularly if he can punitive in addition to actual damages, I hope he doesn't settle for a small pile of cash. I think he has a case that could perhaps win over a jury: "struggling photographer pushed around and laughed at by megabucks charity." Punitive damages are generally set by the jury (they can be modified by the judge) and are based on how much punishment needs to be applied to the defendant to change its behavior. WMF will laugh at a $30,000 settlement or so and fork it over from the coffee tin in the office, and go right back to pushing around the next little guy or gal whose property they misappropriate. It would take millions to make the WMF even blink. They are rich.Randy from Boise wrote:This picture is going to be very lucrative for the photographer, let there be no mistake. He just needs to play his cards carefully and correctly.
WMF will pay him a small pile of cash to settle, but that's only part of it. If he's gracious in victory, David Slater's gonna end up a "name."
WMF does need to have this one shoved up their ass sideways — their legal argument is asinine and they've given the world a dictionary-perfect definition of hubris with their arrogant bullying.