According to The Telegraph, the now-famous photos of the monkey that snapped a selfie using a camera it stole from a photographer in the wilds of Indonesia has caused a legal battle between Wikipedia and the nature photographer David Slater from Gloucestershire, England. Now Wikimedia is putting the issue to a community vote.

It started back in 2011 when Slater went on a trip to the Indonesian jungle where he took photos of the crested black macaque monkeys that are now extremely rare. His camera was taken by a curious female monkey who began snapping hundreds of photos until the photographer was able to eventually retrieve his equipment.

While most of the photos were nothing special, there were a few gems that are now posted on Wikimedia Commons allowing public online users to make use of the images for free. One of the photos of the grinning monkey looked so good that it was nominated for the website's best public domain photo.

Possibly due to her reflection, the monkey is shown in its self-portrait flashing a big grin while looking directly into the lens of the camera. On the other hand, the photographer thinks the matter is not something that he can smile about. In his opinion, the organization behind Wikipedia called Wikimedia is not giving him the proper credit he deserves, even putting the photo in the public domain.

Slater argues that the photos belong to him and are rightly his, as the expense and work as well as the expensive equipment he brought to an expedition to the Sulawesi island were all through his own efforts.

Also included in his argument is how any images taken by assistants also allow the photographer to hold the copyright to those images in such cases. In this case, the smiling simian technically assisted him in taking the photo in the jungle on that day.

Slater has repeatedly asked Wikipedia to take the "monkey selfie" photo down from the public domain.