Alec

While egregious actions have had swift consequences even in the past, there used to be a pretty broad "gray area" of tolerance where both sides would be in agreement to wait and see what the court says.

Nowadays we have that area shrunken to a thin line, and what's worse, depending on the situation or the field that line veers wildly to the left or right. In adademia, show business and so on, it leans left; if you're facing a politician in one of the red states, or a police man, it leans right. Both sides call for consideration but neither seems to be willing to give it, and anyone in its own ranks who dares to raise a voice of dissent, is ostracized with such vengeance that Fahrenheit 451 seems chill by comparison.

Yeah - it's not exactly exemplary scientific method to snap a photo of your own kids and say "Look - aren't they precious, my babies? This camera is amazing, I love it."

Smartphones don't compete on IQ alone - they also have full-time internet connectivity that is already paid for, plus powerful general purpose CPUs which run specialized photo processing and sharing apps from very rich and open ecosystems. To many people, these are devastating advantages, for whose sake they would tolerate a slower response, lower IQ, and fewer optical options. Like I said here (more context) http://karasevstudio.com/o2/2013/32

because this is the appropriate place to advance that agenda / communicate this message

Terminology wise, there are even oxymoronic references to drones with pilots riding them (because, drone is a buzz|keyword that gets clicks). And then you point out a fixed wing with the same remote|auto-pilot features and the folks are like "that's not a drone", because their gerbil brain has no room for anything other than drone = quadcopter; the rest is taken up by TV shows on Netflix.

Oh, I see. It is starting to make sense.
Everybody knows that the very expensive Wetzlar air trapped between the lens elements has been a major contributor to Leica lens cost. I wonder if these technicians are being fed beans grown in Wetzlar in order to duly imbue these Panasonics in order to make them into bona fide Leicas.

So is it Panasonic or is it Leica? I need to know in order to take a stand that this is
(a) images richly imbued with plasticity, luminosity, character, air, mystique that is proof undeniable of Leica's untouchable superiority, or
(b) meh pix from an inconsequential lens that'll be forgotten about in 2-3 years.

It would suck if brands start making bodies with distinct non-spherical curved sensor surfaces, which they patent, and proceed making lenses targeting their specific curvature patterns ... thus taking away the legacy and cross-brand lens support that SONY's E-mount full frame has given us, that was unseen since M42

It's off-message to say "purpose". Say mystique.

Couldn't have put it better myself (and I tried). If only Slater took the high road, he'd be giving TED talks about animals left and right, and signing limited edition print that HE made of the monkey's photo, to hang in the Smithsonian, and for the Library of Congress, and for private collectors for BIG bucks.

Being inflexible and pressing your disadvantage can be a very unfortunate, toxic trap. There's a lesson for all of us.

I agree @cosinaphile - it should not be "humans take all" "just because we're humans" or because we can understand a contract. Perhaps many years ago someone like Hawking would be considered dumb due to his inability to communicate in a way and at a rate humans would expect of a competent individual, without the benefit of technology, human helpers, and society's consideration given to Mr. Hawking today.

So we agree, both a mentally impaired person and a regular monkey can have trouble with contracts and so on. The reason why such a person can of course have rights to the work they create, and the monkey not, is "because they are a person". Not too long ago a similar argument had been made "because they are white" (and not black, as in, slaves could not own property, period) - which had been rightly overturned.

I believe the proof is in the art. If an elephant makes a painting, and the majority of that painting's notoriety and value are due to the fact that an elephant had made them, that elephant's owner or handler or whatever, has little claim to the work in my mind. You could say without the owner's work to train the elephant and buy canvas for it and such, the painting would not have happened, and be right, but it's kind of like Steven Hawking's university and his nurse laying claim to his work. The proof is in the art and who made it - not who helped create the conditions.

dialstatic that's a good argument; however more than one person might claim intent for the same work, and it'd be difficult to discern whose intent was the one that actually resulted in the work (which may not necessarily coincide with the most logical or technically accurate or eloquently articulated one).

Further, arguably an arts supply store owner could hand a poor autistic kid some paint and canvas with the intent of the kid creating a masterpiece, and if that comes to pass I'd hate to see the store owner claim the rights to the work on those grounds.

"Humans can testify as to their state of mind when creating, can make legal agreements, can buy & sell properties & licenses, can understand what copyright is"

That's not necessary to be able to claim rights to the work, because it is perfectly possible for a person suffering from a mental impairment that prevents them to do such things, to be, nonetheless, a brilliant artist.

Actually I stand corrected. On their site it looks like the entire front of the camera has a flat sheet of glass that all lenses share - comparable, cleaning wise, to a large lens filter. Not so bad.

Imagine cleaning those lenses!

No, really. Smartphones take good photos in good light unless the lens is grimy. Not to worry, you take a sec to check it out, breathe on it, and gently wipe it down with an edge of your shirt or some such. Now do that 16 times in a row.

I said, DO modify the image to create copyrightable derivative work. I said, DO trade on the notoriety. As you acknowledged quite rightfully in the Prince example, it's worth way more than the underlying image (and the latter being contested helps not hurts).

There was a time in America when, unfortunately, a similar argument was being applied towards slaves supposedly having no use for intellectual fruits of their labor.

Responding to the changes we bring to the environment, animals are evolving, and quite rapidly so (nowadays broadly documented thanks to smartphones and social media). Cats and dogs already have a bunch of iPad apps built for them to use with their paws - while older folks have problems using similar complexity apps.

Artificial intelligence is evolving.

And just because, say, a child might have no faculties to monetize something she made, doesn't mean she should't be entitled to it (protected and guided by the broader society on its behalf).

The rights for creative works should be at equilibrium with their value and not judged based on species in a "human takes all" fashion as inevitably that's slavery - be it of a monkey's independent mind, or a machine's (in the case of future self-aware and self-evolved AI).

this list is well short of sufficient. i demand the tray in the box that separates the camera from the usb cable/battery/etc, to have that baby bottom texture, and the usb cord itself must have those disposable plastic caps, and be held together with a clear shiny plastic thingy (I want to say a strip of mylar but that's nerdy so I won't). then it's a quality camera but not pro level. for it to be pro level, victoria's secret angels must be seen pretending to use it from a catwalk - then it's pro

Zlatko: nope. Tons of commercial software nowadays use open source libraries, classes, code snippets etc. That does not make the commercial software free to copy. The same with visual works - I can put a girl in a wheelchair drinking a beer on a lunar or martian surface courtesy of NASA (or simply stylize those photos like Andy Warhol's Marilyn), and that work will be perfectly copyrightable. Not to mention, in the art world people pay for the original - a replica of a Dali painting is barely worth the cost of its canvas, and the same for collectible modern artists. Richard Prince is a great case in point of monetizing the notoriety and controversy to the max, as he deftly carves down the copyright line.