‘Monkey owns rights to selfie’

Self-portrait ... Wikimedia have decided this monkey owns the copyright to this image because it took the photo. Picture: Wikimedia/David Slater Source: Supplied

WIKIMEDIA has declined a photographer's requests to remove an image he says is being used online without permission, claiming the copyright belongs to the monkey who pressed the shutter button.

British nature photographer David Slater was in Indonesia in 2011, photographing crested black macaques, when one of the creatures stole off with one of his cameras and took hundreds of selfies, the London Telegraph reports.

Although many of the images were blurry, several of them were undeniably charming — including the macaque seemingly grinning for a self-portrait — and were widely distributed internationally.

The fun didn't last for Mr Slater, who now faces a legal battle with Wikimedia, after the organisation added the image to its collection of more than 22 million royalty-free images and videos online.

Caught on film ... What happens if I press this? Source: Supplied

A peculiar charm ... the crested black macaque. Source: Supplied

Mr Slater claims that decision is jeopardising his income, because Wikimedia have decided the monkey owns the copyright because it took the photo. In the information attached to the image regarding reuse, Wikimedia say: "This file is in the public domain, because as the work of a non-human animal, it has no human author in whom copyright is vested."

The author credit reads "self-portrait by the depicted Macaca nigra female".

"If the monkey took it, it owns copyright, not me, that's their basic argument. What they don't realise is that it needs a court to decide that," he said.

Mr Slater has complained several times to the media organisation, and sometimes the images have been removed, only to be re-uploaded by a different editor. "Some of their editors think it should be put back up. I've told them it's not public domain, they've got no right to say that its public domain. A monkey pressed the button, but I did all the setting up."

Mr Slater said that trip alone was very expensive, yet he had made very little income from the highly popular shots it yielded. Taking legal action will cost him 10,000 pounds ($18,000), he says.

"For every 100,000 images I take, one makes money that keeps me going. And that was one of those images. It was like a year of work, really."

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