By now you've probably heard of the "Cindy Sherman of the Monkey World," as we dubbed her recently. While working in an Indonesian national park, British nature photographer David Slater had his camera purloined by a clever macaque monkey who took several self-portraits, apparently fascinated by her own reflection in the lens. The exceptionally charming images that resulted caught the eye of Britain's Daily Mail and won the cheeky monkey fans around the world, as well as "calling into question notions of personae, monkeyhood, affect, and the history of photography itself," as we put it. We were being tongue-in-cheek, but as it turns out the images have indeed called the very nature of photography into question. The pics are now at the center of a lively debate about copyright, with implications not just for Slater but for the entire world of animal art (yes, there is a world of animal art). After hearing about the accidental monkey masterpieces, the Web site Techdirt posted a short essay musing on the fact that several of the images bore a credit line attributing them to the U.K.-based Caters News Agency, for which Slater works. Copyright is generally held by the person who takes the picture, and since the author was in this case the monkey -- Slater explicitly stated that he had no hand in creating the image -- Techdirt wondered by what basis Caters could have acquired the copyright.