Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog
Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.
As if the idea of a monkey (a “crested macaque,” to be precise) taking a perfect selfie wasn’t strange enough, the lawsuit that followed is.
In 2011, David Slater, a British nature photographer, was taking pictures of the wildlife on the Tangkoko reserve in Indonesia when a monkey by the name of Naruto managed to get Slater’s camera away from him. Naruto took several pictures before Slater managed to get his camera back and one of those pictures turned out to be a perfect selfie – Naruto even smiled and looked right at the camera as he snapped a picture of himself.
Later on, Slater published a book that included some of the pictures Naruto had taken, which had been dubbed “monkey selfies.” That’s when the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) got involved.
PETA sued Slater on behalf of Naruto, trying to claim that, because Naruto had taken the picture, Naruto owned the copyright to that photo. By publishing those photos, Slater had allegedly violated Naruto’s copyright, according to PETA’s lawsuit.
A federal district judge in San Francisco dismissed PETA’s claims in early 2016, saying that, since Naruto was not a person, he could neither own a copyright. Continue reading ›