Of monkeys and men (and copyrights)

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[Commentary] In the well-framed photograph, the brown eyes of a female crested black macaque stare straight into the camera, and her lips curl back into the broad grin of someone who knows that she has just snapped what might become an Internet phenomenon.

According to well-known wildlife photographer David Slater, the now famous “monkey selfie” came about when a troop of macaques found and began playing with his cameras. Meanwhile, outside the jungle, this monkey-selfie has caused some of the macaque’s (theoretically) more advanced relatives to work themselves into one of the Internet’s periodic copyright-related tempest-in-a-teapot situations.

Meanwhile, mass Internet piracy on an unprecedented scale -- almost all of it perpetrated by humans against undeniably human creators who own perfectly valid copyrights – will continue, at least until we choose to resume respecting the fundamental human rights of all (human) creators.


Of monkeys and men (and copyrights)