Macaque monkey doesn’t own copyright to selfies, San Francisco judge rules
Macaque monkey doesn’t own copyright to selfies, San Francisco judge rules
SAN FRANCISCO — The Associated Press
Published Wednesday, Jan. 06, 2016 11:14PM EST
Last updated Wednesday, Jan. 06, 2016 11:15PM EST
A macaque monkey who took now-famous selfie photographs cannot be declared the copyright owner of the photos, a federal judge said Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick said in a tentative ruling in federal court in San Francisco that “while Congress and the president can extend the protection of law to animals as well as humans, there is no indication that they did so in the Copyright Act.”
The lawsuit filed last year by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sought a court order allowing PETA to represent the monkey and let it 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.
The photos were taken during a 2011 trip to Sulawesi with an unattended camera owned by British nature photographer David Slater, who asked the court to dismiss the case. Slater says the British copyright obtained for the photos by his company, Wildlife Personalities Ltd., should be honoured worldwide.
More:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/macaque-monkey-doesnt-own-copyright-to-selfies-san-francisco-judge-rules/article28046431/
