News Digest

Group sues to give monkey the copyright of selfie photos

US animal rights activists filed an unusual lawsuit on Tuesday on behalf of a macaque monkey who snapped selfie photographs, arguing it owned the photos rather than the nature photographer involved. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) filed the suit in federal court in San Francisco on behalf of six-year-old Naruto, seeking to have the macaque “declared the author and owner of his photograph." The photos were taken in 2011 on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi by British nature photographer David Slater.

If this lawsuit succeeds, it will be the first time that a non-human animal is declared the owner of property, rather than being declared a piece of property himself or herself.

PETA

The complaint names Slater, his UK-based company Wildlife Personalities, and Blurb, Inc., a Delaware-based corporation which beginning last year published and sold for profit in the United States a book containing copies of the photos. Naruto’s orange-eyed, beaming selfie is its front cover. PETA said it was bringing the legal action on the rare monkey’s behalf because he could not, "due to inaccessibility and incapacity,” and that the court had jurisdiction because of the book sales made in the United States.

This is ruining my business. If it was a normal photograph and I had claimed I had taken it, I would potentially be a lot richer than I am.

David Slater