Back in 2015, PETA filed a lawsuit on behalf of a cute little macaque who’s selfie went viral. The lawsuit claimed that the photographer, David Slater, had infringed copyright since the monkey had actually taken the selfie himself. To put matters to a rest, A US court has ruled that a monkey who snapped a selfie on a wildlife photographer’s camera does not own the copyright to the image and neither does the photographer since the monkey clicked it.
The case actually dates all the way back to 2011 when David was on a shoot in the Tangkoko reserve, Indonesia. Naruto (the monkey) somehow got a hold of the camera and managed to take a few pictures of himself. Amongst these, the now-viral selfie picture was there. Sometime later, Slater published a book which included the “monkey-selfie” amongst many other pictures.
Seeing this, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, decided to represent Naruto and then filed a lawsuit, that claimed the image violated the copyright of him. In January 2016, a federal district judge in San Francisco ruled that Naruto had no standing: not being a person, he could not bring a lawsuit. They then moved to appeal the decision which was again shot down.The panel of three judges ruled that, not only did PETA lack “next friend” status (a status used when someone can’t represent themselves) to bring the lawsuit on behalf of the monkey, animals, in general, can’t sue under the Copyright Act.
It would be safe to say that the court really went after PETA. They held no punches and went at them with a vengeance. The court even went so far as to tell them not to use a monkey as a pawn to further their human goals. One footnote from the hearing read;
Puzzlingly, while representing to the world that, animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way, PETA seems to employ Naruto as an unwitting pawn in its ideological goals.
This isn’t the first time something like this has happened and the courts know this isn’t the last time either. They could have just thrown the case out immediately, however, the court still treated the monkey as an actual plaintiff, just so that they could prove a point.
What do you make this case? Let us know in the comments below what your take on it is.
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