Judge: Monkey Cannot Own Copyright of Selfie Photos
U.S. District Judge William Orrick said that Congress did not extend federal copyright law to animals. That means the monkey cannot control the rights to the photos and profit from their distribution.
The ruling came in a novel lawsuit filed last year by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that sought a court order allowing PETA to represent the monkey and let it administer all proceeds from the photos for the benefit of the monkey, which it identified as 6-year-old Naruto, and other crested macaques living in a reserve on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
The photos were taken during a 2011 trip to Sulawesi by British nature photographer David Slater. The monkey took the photos by “purposely pushing the shutter release multiple times, understanding the cause-and-effect relationship between pressing the shutter release, the noise of the shutter, and the change to his reflection in the camera lens,” PETA said in its lawsuit.
Slater said he was the brains behind the photos, setting up the tripod the camera was on and positioning and holding it throughout the shoot. He said the British copyright obtained for the photos by his company, Wildlife Personalities Ltd., should be honored worldwide. He moved to have PETA’s lawsuit dismissed, arguing that “monkey see, monkey sue is not good law.”
PETA also named as a defendant Slater’s San Francisco-based self-publishing company Blurb, which published a book called “Wildlife Personalities” that includes the “monkey selfie” photos.
The photos have been widely distributed elsewhere by outlets, which contend that no one owns the copyright to the images because they were taken by an animal, not a person. Slater has said he is exploring legal action against some of those outlets.
PETA said the organization will continue fighting for the monkey’s rights.