It appears that Ellen DeGeneres doesn't own the most talked-about selfie in history. The historic mobile photo taken at this year's Oscars, said a Daily Mail report, should not be credited to the talk show host, but to the one who actually took the photo - Bradley Cooper.
11 of the biggest stars in the world and including 2014 Academy Award Best Supporting Actress winner Lupita Nyong'o's brother Peter, hammed it up for the mobile phone camera DeGeneres orchestrated as part of her gags as a host to this year's much-anticipated event in the Hollywood awards circuit. However, Daily Mail said that despite the fact that DeGeneres made the selfie happen, it was the "American Hustle" actor who took the photo.
The UK newspaper also said that Samsung, who supplied the photo for the host especially for the event, was not the true author of the photo that caused a temporary outage on Twitter.
The Wire said in a report that The Associated Press, who asked DeGeneres the right to use the famous photo, was asking the wrong person. Talking to Los Angeles-area entertainment lawyer Ethan Kirschner regarding the photo, he said AP might need to talk to Cooper's camp instead. Kirschner, "Historically, it's always been the person who pressed the shutter who's technically the person that owns copyright. (In photography, the courts) had to assign copyright to someone; they gave it to the person that literally pressed the button."
Kirschner also said that Cooper may not be the only one who could claim a right to the photo. He said that since the author, Cooper for this instance, participated in the photo, the rest of the case in the photo are considered co-owners in principle.
Another entertainment lawyer, Eric Spiegelman, insisted to the Wire that DeGeneres is the true owner of the photo. He said that since DeGeneres enlisted Cooper's help to capture the moment, Cooper technically was employed, and that non-financial compensation in the form of the publicity the photo received had paid off the actor's services to DeGeneres.
