The animal rights group filed a lawsuit yesterday on behalf of the monkey, a 6-year-old macaque in Indonesia named Naruto.
Advertisement
A monkey selfie lawsuit, initiated by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), is gaining worldwide attention.
Englehardt is a scientist who has known, monitored and studied the monkey since his birth.
As stated in the lawsuit, photographer David John Slater traveled to Indonesia’s Tangkoko Reserve to take wildlife photos “in or around 2011”.
“While the claim of authorship by species other than homo sapiens may be novel, ‘authorship; under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq., is sufficiently broad so as to permit the protections of the law to extend to any original work, including those created by Naruto.” . Copyright law is clear: “It’s not the person who owns the camera, it’s the being who took the photograph”.
And I also have a feeling that the ridiculous idea that non-human animals have “rights” of any kind (including ownership rights) will seem less and less ridiculous over time, and that the presentists of the future will look back and shudder at the manner in which we treated animals and wonder how we could have been so morally obtuse (somewhat in the way today we view slaveholders of days gone by).
While PETA claims the monkey has the copyright to the selfie, Wikimedia claims no one does.
Slater has asked Wikimedia to take the photo down.
“Greedy PETA wising to exploit the selfie for their own agenda”.
And so the professional photographer can’t make money off photos shared in the public domain.
The lawsuit names Slater, his UK-based company Wildlife Personalities, and Blurb, Inc., a Delaware-based corporation which beginning past year published and sold for profit in the United States a book containing copies of the photos. Slater wrote.
“We are also asking the court to allow PETA to administer the proceeds of “Monkey Selfie” sales for the benefit of Naruto and his community, without compensation to PETA”.
Advertisement
In the complaint, according to Courthouse News, the plaintiffs argue that “had the monkey selfies been made by a human using Slater’s unattended camera, that human would be declared the photograph’s author and copyright owner”. “Overall, originality is a low threshold, and probably satisfied by the macaque’s selfie”, Cevallos wrote. “Materials produced exclusively by nature, by plants or by animals are not copyrightable”, he said. Works “created” by nature including animals have no legal author and, therefore, are not copyrightable.
