Animals

Monkey selfie case: judge rules animal cannot own his photo copyright

A San Francisco court said that while the protection of law could be extended to animals, there was no indication that it was in the Copyright Act
A monkey selfie.
 A macaque monkey on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi took a flattering selfie with a British nature photographer’s camera. Photograph: AP
Associated Press

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A federal judge in San Francisco has ruled that a macaque monkey who took now-famous selfie photographs cannot be declared the copyright owner of the photos.
U.S. district Judge William Orrick said in a tentative opinion Wednesday that while Congress and the president can extend the protection of law to animals as well as humans, there is no indication that they did so in the Copyright Act.
The lawsuit filed last year by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sought a court order allowing Peta to administer all proceeds from the photos for the benefit of the monkey, which it identified as six-year-old Naruto.
The photos were taken during a 2011 trip to Sulawesi, Indonesia, by British nature photographer David Slater, who asked the court to dismiss the case. He says the British copyright obtained for the photos by his company, Wildlife Personalities Ltd., should be honored worldwide.
However, the photos have been widely distributed elsewhere by outlets, including Wikipedia, which contend that no one owns the copyright to the images because they were taken by an animal, not a person.