When is a photographer not the “author” of a photograph for copyright purposes? According to a federal judge in San Francisco, when the photographer is a monkey!
Sometime in 2011, a crested macaque monkey living on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, used the camera of nature photographer David Slater to take a number of self-portraits, which became famous as the “Monkey Selfies.” Slater claimed to be the author and the copyright owner of the Monkey Selfies and self-published a book through Blurb, Inc. containing copies of the photographs. Slater’s company, Wildlife Personalities, Ltd., also claimed an authorship interest in the Monkey Selfies, through ownership of the U.K. copyright.
In 2015, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (“PETA”) and primatologist Antje Engelhardt of the Macaca Nigra Project brought suit against Slater for copyright infringement, as “Next Friends” for a male macaque named “Naruto,” in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco. [See Narute Complaint Part 1 and Part 2] Defendants filed motions to dismiss. On January 28, 2016, Judge William Orrick dismissed the case, finding that Naruto did not have standing to sue under the Copyright Act because animals cannot be “authors” and therefore cannot own copyrights.
Read more: http://www.ilnipinsider.com/2016/02/selfie-copyright-does-not-belong-to-monkey-who-took-it/
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