penny

You might want to think twice the next time you snap a photo containing Canadian currency: the Royal Canadian Mint says that it holds copyright over those images.

It recently informed Nova Scotia folk musician Dave Gunning that he would need to pay licensing fees for the artwork used in his upcoming album No More Pennies. Set to be released on September 18th, the album art features three photographs that contain Canadian pennies (depicted as a sun, as train wheels, and on a table), designed to pay tribute the fact that the pennies were discontinued this year.

Did you know that there's US currency on Mars? It's true: when NASA's Curiosity rover was launched back on November 26, 2011, one of the things it carried with it was a penny from over a century ago. The 1909 Lincoln cent is part of the rover's onboard calibration target used to check that the cameras are working properly.