A FILM of the dramatic rescue of a drowning chick by an orang-utan at Dublin Zoo has sparked a copyright row. Michael McGrane, Ashbourne, Co Meath, filmed a Bornean orang-utan called Jorong fishing a distressed baby moorhen out of a pond in its enclosure with a leaf more than four years ago.
In the clip, the orang-utan is seen coaxing the struggling bird out of the water with a leaf before examining it carefully, much to the amazement of onlookers.
Mr McGrane posted the clip on YouTube immediately. It sat largely unnoticed on the video-sharing site until early this week when it became an overnight internet sensation after being sold to a number of British national newspapers by a Birmingham-based news agency called News Team International.
The four-minute clip was filmed by Mr McGrane on his mobile in 2007. It has now been watched by hundreds of thousands on YouTube but until now, there had been confusion about its source.
The Daily Mail,one of the most popular websites in Britain, posted the video and an accompanying story on its site earlier this week, saying both the location and the cameraman were unknown. It also said copyright on the clip belonged to News Team International.
Mr McGrane told The Irish Timesyesterday he was bemused by the sudden popularity of the clip and slightly annoyed that he had not been properly credited as the source of the video and that copyright on it was being claimed by someone else.
He only became aware it had gone viral by accident. Last Friday, a news website called clickLiverpool.com contacted him seeking his permission to use the footage. He agreed but on Tuesday the site got in touch again to say it no longer had any interest in it as it had appeared on the Daily Mailsite.
"I didn't get any request from either the Mailor NTI to use this and there's no reference to me in the article," Mr McGrane said.
“They claimed it had been filmed last week at an unknown zoo by an unknown cameraman and had all these references to the orang-utan giving the duck the kiss of life. I actually shot it four years ago. I was just trying out my new phone and there was no kiss of life.”
The news agency which sold the clip said it would be willing to split any revenue generated by it with Mr McGrane. “The clip was available online so we are under no obligation to pay him anything but, as a gesture of goodwill, we would be more than happy to split the revenue with him,” a spokesman said.
It came across the clip last week and knew that had it not claimed it, it would have been distributed by a rival organisation.
Mark Newman, a solicitor specialising in digital media and intellectual property rights, said that as Mr McGrane was the creator of the clip, he was the sole owner of the copyright and could pursue NTI for all revenue generated.
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