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August 6, 2014

Monkey Selfie: Who Owns the Rights?

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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?

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