PETA Sues To Give Monkey Copyright Of Selfie Photos
A macaque monkey who took now-famous selfie photographs should be declared the copyright owner of the photos, rather than the nature photographer who positioned the camera, animal-rights activists contend in a novel lawsuit.
The suit was filed Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. It seeks a court order allowing PETA to administer all proceeds from the photos for the benefit of the monkey, which it identified as 6-year-old Naruto, and other crested macaques living in a reserve on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
Last year I wrote a parody column about how the real travesty is that monkeys don't have copyright http://t.co/9Xqd1ed0mr
— sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) September 22, 2015
The photos were taken during a 2011 trip to Sulawesi by British nature photographer David Slater, who says the British copyright obtained for the photos by his company, Wildlife Personalities Ltd., should be honored worldwide.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.