David J Slater isn't a camera-rental company though: he's someone that earns a living from travelling to exotic locations and pointing his camera at wildlife in compelling situations and then processing the image before selling it as his creative output. The difference being, in this case, the wildlife participated a little more than usual in that creative process by pressing the shutter button.
The situation is a lot more analogous to a celebrity inadvertently taking a selfie in a scuffle with a paparazzo; the celebrity is the intended object of interest and inadvertently triggers a composition far more interesting than the paparazzo's original concept, but the paparazzo was there with the intent of making a creative work. I'm not sure whether any sort of legal precedent exists for that, but I'd be surprised if legal arguments the paparazzo was too creatively uninvolved to have any say in the image distribution rights were positively received.
Exactly. The only reason the image is worth anything is the monkey took the photo. The owner of the photographic gear seems to be arguing both that it is his photo and not his photo.
I agree that it's a good picture. But "I took a great picture of a monkey" doesn't sell nearly as well as "This monkey took a great picture of himself". "I took a great picture of a monkey" doesn't get you articles about that picture, "This monkey took a great picture of himself" definitely does.
The situation is a lot more analogous to a celebrity inadvertently taking a selfie in a scuffle with a paparazzo; the celebrity is the intended object of interest and inadvertently triggers a composition far more interesting than the paparazzo's original concept, but the paparazzo was there with the intent of making a creative work. I'm not sure whether any sort of legal precedent exists for that, but I'd be surprised if legal arguments the paparazzo was too creatively uninvolved to have any say in the image distribution rights were positively received.