This assignment started off by watching a lecture video on selfies. After this, I explored the question of “Who owns the copyright to a monkey’s selfie?” by reading 3 articles related to the topic. Following this, I had to make a discussion board post, explaining two aspects of selfies from Professor Gernsbacher’s lecture video that surprised me the most and why, answer the question I was exploring, and say why I chose to answer that question.
From professor Gernsbacher’s lecture video, she started off by explaining the current popularity of the selfie, including how it got named word of the year in 2013 and how many celebrities have been documented taking selfies. The next portion of her video discusses that humans have actually been fond of taking selfies for many centuries, much before the invention of the Internet, going back all the way to the 1830’s. I will discuss some examples of these later. Finally, she discusses some reports on how selfies were related to narcissism and psychopathy, and dismisses the claims, explaining that they misreported the findings.
My discussion board post starts off by diving into my reactions to the points from the video. The first aspect of selfies ]that surprised me the most was that humans have been fond of taking selfies for centuries, much before the internet. Examples were given of selfies all the way back until 1839, when Robert Cornelius took one, less than two months after the invention of photography. This surprises me so much because I think of selfies as a modern phenomenon, and would have expected that they did not really occur before the last couple of decades. It is crazy to know how far back the history of selfies really goes!
The second aspect that surprises me is that people thought that selfies were related to psychopathy and narcissism, based on reports from studies. This surprises me because I view selfies as something that regular people do, by themselves, with friends, or with family. And, in fact, according to the lecture, the actual research shows that what is actually happening is that people who post a lot of selfies just post a lot of other photos. This explains 34% of the variance, compared to only 3 or 4 percent for psychopathy and narcissism.
As I mentioned previously, the question I chose to explore was “Who owns the rights to a monkey’s selfie?”. The situation is explained well in a 2015 article by David Kravets, who states “The monkey, the named plaintiff in the case, is suing a publisher and David Slater, the British nature photographer whose camera was swiped by an ape while the photographer was on a jungle shoot. Slater has published a book with the pictures the monkey took of himself, and the monkey is seeking damages for copyright infringement”.
Moving forward, according to a 2016 article also by David Kravets, a federal judge said that the monkey “cannot own the intellectual property rights to those handful of pictures”. Additionally, on the other end, “The US Copyright Office says Slater cannot own the rights” to the photos. More recently, according to an article by Thanawala (2018), the lawyers for both parties reached a settlement in which “the photographer whose camera was used to take the photos agreed to donate 25 percent of any future revenue from the images to charities dedicated to protecting crested macaques in Indonesia”.
So, wrapping up the question, since the lawyers asked the judges not to rule, and they reached this settlement, it seems as if there is no direct answer to who owns the rights to the selfies. However, Slater can continue to use the selfies, so he benefits, but also some revenue goes to helping protect the monkeys in Indonesia, so that party benefits too. So, in the end, it worked out fairly well overall.
I chose to answer this question merely because it sounded comical and interesting. I did not really know of any monkeys taking selfies previously, so it intrigued me. I guess I just viewed it as such a human practice that I did not think other animals would join in on the fun!
Reflecting on this assignment, I thought the topic of the lecture video was very relatable to my generation, which made it interesting. I am not someone who takes a ton of selfies, but they are so incredibly common overall, so I was excited to learn a bit more about them. Learning about their deep history was surprising but cool. I also liked how professor Gernsbacher took the time to contradict the claims of the reports about selfies, because it showcased how the media does not always accurately portray research results.
Additionally, I really enjoyed that we got the chance to choose which set of activities we wanted to complete. As I have mentioned in a few previous blog posts, getting the choice allows me to be more interested and engaged in the assignment, because it relates to something I care about exploring. For example, I enjoyed reading the articles about the monkey case, because the topic was very interesting and something I did not know about.
This assignment didn’t have a ton of steps, so I do not have much more to reflect on. However, the topics presented were interesting and allowed for critical thinking and some modification of previous perspectives. So, overall, with some learning and some fun, this assignment was certainly worthwhile!
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