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[Reelya]

I think the core debate though is the idea of public domain. Open source uses licenses such as GPL and not public domain for a good reason - anyone can cash in on public domain works and exploit them for profit as if they are the creator. So, public domain isn't always the greatest thing out there, unless you plan to on-sell the thing for profit.

Nobody is going to be charged-per-view or anything if a photo is recognized as copyrighted. That's not a thing we do for photos in general, so it's not relevant to bring up as a hypothetical, and has no bearing on the rights under discussion.

Royalties for use affect those who would use the image for commercial profit.

As for the main topic of the thread, the photographer didn't take it, and he didn't deliberately cause the monkey to take it. He just happened to possess the camera after the monkey took the picture. For him to claim authorship is like an art teacher claiming they created a student's painting because they put them in a situation where they chose to create it and then picked it up as part of an assignment.

That's just doesn't hold up as a defining criteria for ownership. Plenty of things are either machine-created, or happen by chance, or are unexpected outcomes of other processes, etc, and we still recognize creator's rights for their owners.

Copyright law is defined by publication because it's impossible to philosophically determine ownership of anything. You might as well say quantum processes own everything because you can't prove you have free will. Since it's completely arbitrary, it's not relevant to the discussion.

What if your finger accidentally slips and takes a photo. What if a rock fell on a camera shutter by some freak chance, who owns that photo? A rock? That's no more or less deliberate than what a monkey did.

[ZetaX]

As for the main topic of the thread, the photographer didn't take it, and he didn't deliberately cause the monkey to take it. He just happened to possess the camera after the monkey took the picture. For him to claim authorship is like an art teacher claiming they created a student's painting because they put them in a situation where they chose to create it and then picked it up as part of an assignment.

Yes, the photographer did not contribute more than having a camera and maybe not deleting the picture. But that's why I have chosen a meteorite as an example above: it is entirely random, the new "owner" did nothing to get it, yet we consider it his property because he found it first. I would treat the photo the same.

a picture of a monkey isn't going to be any more aesthetically appealing or funny because you had to pay for it.

Actually it is: placebo effects on such things exist and a higher price often increases the positive effects of it. But that's just a side remark.

[Graknorke]

Except the guy has explicitly stated he doesn't want to picture on Wikimedia (a not for profit organisation), presumably unless he is paid.
That is exactly the the thing that is under discussion.

[Aklyon]

That's now just a non-sequitur. Shall I now give you an equally irrelevant answer about how you seemingly want total communism for communisms sake¿

No, but I can see you have a career in american politics with that kind of remark (minus the inverted ?). Copyright is an important concept as it originally was, modern copyright is a joke on par with software patents.
Perhaps future copyright will actually make sense for digital media, or more likely it won't, instead the entertainment industry and the IP lobby will continue to demand any new media form sacrifice their business and profits in the judicial system (or to unthinking algorithms that cannot distinguish allowed use from fair use nor illegal use from either of the above) so the industry never has look up and adapt further than it already grudgingly has.

I will quote Eagle_eye for the second point of your post to get back on topic, even though he did better than I did on both points.

As for the main topic of the thread, the photographer didn't take it, and he didn't deliberately cause the monkey to take it. He just happened to possess the camera after the monkey took the picture. For him to claim authorship is like an art teacher claiming they created a student's painting because they put them in a situation where they chose to create it and then picked it up as part of an assignment.

ninjaedit:

As for the main topic of the thread, the photographer didn't take it, and he didn't deliberately cause the monkey to take it. He just happened to possess the camera after the monkey took the picture. For him to claim authorship is like an art teacher claiming they created a student's painting because they put them in a situation where they chose to create it and then picked it up as part of an assignment.

That's just doesn't hold up as a defining criteria for ownership. Plenty of things are either machine-created, or happen by chance, or are unexpected outcomes of other processes, etc, and we still recognize creator's rights for their owners.

Machines and accidents are different from other animals though. Machines do nothing on their own as a tool and accidents aren't a being of any kind, they have to have someone (or someone's something) to have an effect on.

[Eagle_eye]

That's just doesn't hold up as a defining criteria for ownership. Plenty of things are either machine-created, or happen by chance, or are unexpected outcomes of other processes, etc, and we still recognize creator's rights for their owners.

We're not talking about property ownership, we're talking about copyright law, which doesn't, in fact, grant any rights solely by virtue of owning a physical object.

Copyright law is defined by publication

That's absolutely not true. Unpublished works are still protected by copyright. It would just be much more difficult to prove in court. http://copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.pdf, page 9: "The works specified by sections 102 and 103, while unpublished, are subject to protection under this title without regard to the nationality or domicile of the author."

Yes, the photographer did not contribute more than having a camera and maybe not deleting the picture. But that's why I have chosen a meteorite as an example above: it is entirely random, the new "owner" did nothing to get it, yet we consider it his property because he found it first. I would treat the photo the same.

We consider it their property because they possess it- it is literally on their person. That is, by its very nature, exclusive. You can't possess information- if a radio signal were broadcast at earth from, say, a pulsar, the copyright wouldn't be owned by whoever detected it first, because they didn't create it.

[Reelya]

Light rays from a pulsar and light rays hitting a camera lens, what's the difference? By that token, nobody can own rights to photos at all. You either enforce no ownership of any photo, or allow ownership of this monkey photo.

If you're standing in one spot and image the pulsar data, you can make a unique image / sound / video etc from that data. The data will not be identical at any other spot (slightly different red shift, parallax etc at other locations). You say "they didn't create it" but neither did anyone photographing anything at all - the light signals were already there whether or not you intercepted them.

[GlyphGryph]

Yes, the photographer did not contribute more than having a camera and maybe not deleting the picture. But that's why I have chosen a meteorite as an example above: it is entirely random, the new "owner" did nothing to get it, yet we consider it his property because he found it first. I would treat the photo the same.

Copyright expressly disregards found things. As do patents. As does all IP law, because it's got shit to do with "ownership" and everything to do with activities that the government decides are worth encouraging by granting a temporary monopoly over producing duplicates of the original. The government of all modern nations have been quite clear that the purpose of that monopoly, in regards to copyright, is to encourage the creation of new works. If you didn't author the work (or reimburse the creator in some way in exchange or incentive them to create through hire and claim the right via contract), you don't get to claim copyright.

If you steal the photo of the monkey, like if you literally stole this guy's camera with the photo on it, you would not be violating copyright, because copyright has nothing to do with physical ownership over a thing, or even ownership over an idea, and is solely about the limited right to reproduce (hence the word COPY-RIGHT). The courts have been pretty consistent here - there are laws that govern ownership of found objects, but those laws cannot grant you copyright (or any sort of intellectual property claim) over those objects.

That's just doesn't hold up as a defining criteria for ownership. Plenty of things are either machine-created, or happen by chance, or are unexpected outcomes of other processes, etc, and we still recognize creator's rights for their owners.

Copyright law serves a purpose - to encourage creation. This purpose is not served by, and copyright is not granted over, things that happen "accidentally" (except in the case of intentional accidents), not does it cover acts of nature. What examples, exactly, are you thinking of where we actually give creator's rights over things that occur without any input or setup from the creator?

Also, it's important to remember that one cannot legally own the "concept of the picture" or whatever you seem to believe, only a series of rights regarding reproduction and limiting others from engaging in reproduction (which can be traded away in whole or in part, and shared with multiple other people who can do the same).

[ZetaX]

That's now just a non-sequitur. Shall I now give you an equally irrelevant answer about how you seemingly want total communism for communisms sake¿

No, but I can see you have a career in american politics with that kind of remark (minus the inverted ?). Copyright is an important concept as it originally was, modern copyright is a joke on par with software patents.
Perhaps future copyright will actually make sense for digital media, or more likely it won't, instead the entertainment industry and the IP lobby will continue to demand any new media form sacrifice their business and profits in the judicial system (or to unthinking algorithms that cannot distinguish allowed use from fair use nor illegal use from either of the above) so the industry never has look up and adapt further than it already grudgingly has.

I really don't get what weird problems you have. Neither did I agree to modern copyright in general, nor was I even talking about it in that post. How you got from a special instance we are discussing to such a general nonsense is beyond me. It seems you are just projecting some hatred of copyright onto me.

Machines and accidents are different from other animals though. Machines do nothing on their own as a tool and accidents aren't a being of any kind, they have to have someone (or someone's something) to have an effect on.

Machines can do a lot on their own nowadays and I do not see how an accident involving a falling meteor is any different than an accident of a cow running into your car. Both are out of human control, and if you want to argue like that you will have to explain why the monkey incident is any different.

[Aklyon]

Probably, I did go a bit far off the topic at hand there, looking at it now. I did mean the first sentence though, it wasn't the best of responses you could've had.

Aside from that, I'm going to avoid posting more in here; I don't think I'll get anywhere productive with it. Continue on, guy with the colorful avatar and other people I recognize more.

[alexandertnt]

You could use the same argument against the government spending money on cultural projects vs medicine against individuals.

Yes, yes you could...

I see no issue with governments supporting culture like that, and a lot already do, as cultural works have importance.

I generally agree to an extent. The difference is in the ammount these high-budget developments cost. It would cost considerably more to finance these projects. I am not a fan of funding something like Diablo for example (A game I really, really, strongly dislike) through my taxes.

Although current government funded stuff is certainly capable of being terrable, it's much less of a financial impact.

And your just going to end up paying for it through taxes anyway, so why not just buy it? All I can really see happening is that people who don't want these games are going to subsidise and make it cheaper for those who do.

If there is a demand I can't see why people couldn't find a way to get it done.

We did find a way to get it done. If you want to watch a movie, then you buy the movie, otherwise you shouldn't be able to watch it (if the movie owner decides that, anyway).

Disclaimer: This response is not supposed to deal with copyright in detail, only the basic concept of Intellectual Property. Copyright laws as they are are pretty screwed up, I don't think too many people are going to deny that.

[Strife26]

I know, right? The rights of the content producer _{'s estate} are so horribly, horribly trampled upon by modern law. It's taking food right out of their mouths.

[Loud Whispers]

Half of those objections were already answered, please read the whole thread next time before replying to something two pages back.
Anyway, that man rendered obsolete therefore lost his income. How is that not a loss for him¿

I read them and they were not answered adequately and new points were brought up which you didn't address.

And use 50ppp.

In Britain a couple hundred years ago toll gates were made to charge people to use the roads to transfer goods to and fro the ports for trading. The people who owned these toll gates could get a nifty bit of profit for essentially being doormen to the roads. By the time the industrial revolution kicks in railways and canals render the turnpikes obsolete because the toll gates are inferior to both canals and railways and the inefficient regulation of the roads is proving to be hurting free trade.
In any case all the turnpike trusts went out of business, the middle man was eliminated and the locals celebrated by throwing the gates open, symbolic of their new found freedom.

The internet has done what the canals and railways of old have done and thrown open the intellectual gates of humanity to unending freedom and inane distractions; why do people like the random guy in your example earn themselves immunity to having to adapt to the changing world where no others have such a privilege? How is that a loss that demands the closing of the gates? Hell, I've got a friend who used to manufacture CD-ROMs. Key word here is used to, because he realized that no one was buying CD-ROMs anymore and if he didn't find another career soon he'd be made redundant; even more relevant is that CD-ROM sales are down because everything is digitized now. Should he have attacked people making digital purchases whilst clinging to CD-ROMs, or was he right to adapt?

[DJ]

This is the age of Kickstarter, do we really have no options for financing other other than government or commercial distribution? It's not like art hasn't been historically financed by private donations, the only difference being that it was a small number of rich sponsors whereas now we have the technology to let a large number of lower wealth sponsors do the same.

[alexandertnt]

This is the age of Kickstarter, do we really have no options for financing other other than government or commercial distribution? It's not like art hasn't been historically financed by private donations, the only difference being that it was a small number of rich sponsors whereas now we have the technology to let a large number of lower wealth sponsors do the same.

It's called "Kickstarter", not "CompleteFinance-er". Most of these projects (which are still copyrighted, by the way) have to seek out extra funding by selling their game (this is where Early Access so famously often comes in).

[Jelle]

Machines can do a lot on their own nowadays and I do not see how an accident involving a falling meteor is any different than an accident of a cow running into your car. Both are out of human control, and if you want to argue like that you will have to explain why the monkey incident is any different.

I don't see how the words you've typed and posted are any different from the automated messages in the interface of this forum. Both are just words on my screen.

Quite frankly it baffles me how you continue to compare living, breathing, thinking creatures to inanimate objects. An animals thinks, even if rudimentary in most cases, and acts; a man, who is also an animal, thinks and acts. Claiming that any action involing anything not human can be reduced to some random natural event is honestly insulting.


As for the matter of the image. I wouldn't know the first thing about whatever laws apply to this kind of situation, so I can only comment on what I find morally right. The way I see it the monkey in question and the photographer are both directly responsible for the creation of the image. The photographer for setting up the equipment, the monkey for taking the actual photograph. The degree of which is a matter of debate, but clearly a cut of the profits made on the image rightly belongs to the animal who took the picture, but since they have no notion of nor use for money their profit should go towards the conservation of their species. I'm sure the monkey would appreciate it.