Skip to content

Monkey Selfie: Who Owns the Rights?

Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

Celebes crested macaque is an endangered species of monkey, which is obviously a shame especially considering what talented photographers they are. In Indonesia, one grabbed David Slater’s camera and snapped a selfie. Wikipedia, that bastion of keeping information open and free, is now using it for the celebes crested macaque Wikipage. But Slater says that the rights to the monkey selfie belong to him; Wikipedia says that the rights belong to the photographer–the monkey–and since monkeys can’t file for copyrights then that makes the selfie public domain. Who do you agree with and why?

Via: Quartz

Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.
Related
A bearded man wearing glasses and a plaid shirt speaks with a microphone clipped to his collar in front of a purple background with white dots.
The Well
How Rainn Wilson discovered sacredness
The hospital where Rainn Wilson’s wife and son nearly died became his own personal holy site. There, he discovered that the sacred can exist in places we least expect it. During his talk at A Night of Awe and Wonder, he explained how the awe we feel in moments of courage and love is moral beauty — and following it might be the start of our spiritual revolution.
▸
13 min
—
with
Rainn Wilson
Up Next