Monkey Selfie' Lawsuit Ends With Settlement Between PETA, Photographer
Back in 2011, Naruto was just an anonymous macaque in the jungles of Indonesia. On one particular day, however, the photogenic primate happened upon a wildlife photographer's camera and snapped a "monkey selfie."
Whether the act was intentional or a quite-too-literal instance of monkeying around, only the grinning primate knows for certain. But it raised a complicated question: Who owns the images Naruto took, the monkey or the man?
It also started a years-long saga in which the U.S. Copyright Office and even Wikipedia weighed in.
On Monday, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced a settlement with photographer David Slater, ending a lawsuit it filed on Naruto's behalf. Under the deal, Slater agreed to donate 25 percent of future revenue from the photos to groups that protect crested macaques and their habitat in Indonesia. Both sides also asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals "to dismiss the case and throw out a lower court decision that said animals cannot own copyrights," The Associated Press reports.
"PETA and David Slater agree that this case raises important, cutting-edge issues about expanding legal rights for nonhuman animals, a goal that they both support, and they will continue their respective work to achieve this goal," read a joint statement on the group's website.
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That is too funny. People making a monetary case for a being that doesn't really care.
Ridiculous. The Photographer should have told them to go f*ck themselves. Just another way for Peta (THE BIGGEST "HUMANE" KILLER OF ANIMALS ON THE PLANET) to make money and stay in the headlines
This is a case of a photographer trying to profit off of work that even he admitted from the beginning was not his own. From the article (and wasn't included in the above excerpt):
"The U.S. Copyright Office, since the dispute began, has specifically listed 'a photograph taken by a monkey' as an example of an item that cannot be copyrighted ."
People do understand that the case was settled between the two parties and this was not imposed on them by a court. Right?