{"id":337,"date":"2014-08-08T11:58:16","date_gmt":"2014-08-08T11:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michaelsmithlaw.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/copyright-conundrum-a-monkeys.html"},"modified":"2025-03-09T22:13:45","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T02:13:45","slug":"copyright-conundrum-a-monkeys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hpindiana.law\/business-blog\/copyright-conundrum-a-monkeys\/","title":{"rendered":"Copyright Conundrum: A monkey’s selfie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, this article in the Washington Post<\/em> is just too good not to mention.<\/p>\n

As reported in 2011<\/a> by the Guardian<\/em>, British photographer David Slater spent three days in an Indonesian national park following and photographing crested black macaques, a type of monkey. At some point, he set up his camera on a tripod and left it unattended for a few minutes. When he returned, he found that the macaques had taken the camera and were taking pictures with it, apparently intrigued by the sound of the shutter. As it turns out, they took some pretty good pictures<\/a>, including some of themselves. That’s right – monkey selfies.<\/p>\n

At least one of the pictures was posted on Wikimedia Commons<\/a>. As Wikimedia has now disclosed<\/a>, it received from Mr. Slater a “take-down notice” under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (or DMCA). The take-down provisions of DMCA are intended to deal with some of the unique intellectual property issues created by the internet, including the issue of an online service provider (or “OSP,” such as Wikimedia) being liable for copyright infringement when infringing material is posted on the OSP’s web site. If the owner of copyrighted material (text, a photograph or other image, video or audio recording, etc.) discovers his material has been posted online, the copyright owner can send a notice to the OSP demanding that it be taken down. If the OSP complies, it will not be liable for infringement. However, the OSP is also required to notify the person who posted the material that it has been taken down, and that person has the opportunity to challenge the allegation of infringement.<\/p>\n

Continue reading \u203a<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, this article in the Washington Post is just too good not to mention. As reported in 2011 by the Guardian, British photographer David Slater spent three days in an Indonesian national park following and photographing crested black macaques, a type of monkey. At some point, he set up his camera on a tripod and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trademarks-copyrights-trade-secrets"],"yoast_head":"\nCopyright Conundrum: A monkey's selfie — Indiana Business Law Blog — August 8, 2014<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Okay, this article in the Washington Post is just too good not to mention. 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