A primary reason the photo was so widely viewed and published is the monkey operating the camera.<p>The sizzle, the legs on this is: monkey selfie, take a look!<p>Had he taken the photo, the story would have been: photographer takes one in a million photo of rare, difficult to photograph monkey, take a look!<p>Publishing the former is apparently free. Publishing the latter comes with a royalty.<p>Would the latter story have the sizzle, legs the former one does, and would publishers have paid?<p>I feel for him.<p>But, there is picking battles. He could have walked from it, worked on other photos, kept going.<p>Had he done that, he would be the guy there when a monkey did something amazing!<p>But what he did was make sure he is remembered as the guy who tried to own what a monkey did.<p>In hindsight and as someone not invested at all, that's a mistake, and it expensive, painful, regrettable.<p>Ouch!