It seems that one judge is sock of monkeying around when it comes to the case of the monkey selfie (pun intended!).
We’ve previously written about this bizarre court case from the world of photography in which photographer David Slater had his camera used by an Indonesian monkey named Naruto to take self portraits on.
When it comes to copyright ownership of photographs, it has previously been rules that the copyright belongs to the person who physically pressed the shutter button to take the photo, rather than the subject of the photo, or whoever owns the equipment.
So in this case, even though the camera belonged to Slater, the photos published were actually selfies taken by Naruto.
PETA took the photographer to court over the image arguing that the monkey did in fact own the copyright to the selfies ‘he’ shot back in 2011, as he was responsible for “purposely pushing the shutter release multiple times (and) understanding the cause-and-effect relationship between pressing the shutter release, the noise of the shutter, and the change to his reflection in the camera lens.”
However, it appears that the case has now come to a head, with U.S. District Judge William Orrick stating, “I just don’t see that it could go as broadly as beyond humans,” when talking about the ownership of the copyright to the photos.
The case started after the photos were published by Wikipedia and they refused to take the photos down, despite a request by the photographer, as they categorised them as belonging in the public domain, since Slater could not own the copyright to the photos as he himself did not press the shutter button.
Soon after the US Copyright Office weighed in on the argument and state that it cannot register works by monkeys.
PETA took up the fight for the monkey and launched the civil suit, arguing that the monkey could in fact own the copyright to his selfie and that he should receive all proceeds that resulted from his selfie.
Judge Orrick has now announced that he intends to rule that a monkey cannot own the copyright to photos and dismiss the case.
Still there is hope for Naruto the monkey, as Judge Orrick has given PETA permission to file an amended lawsuit and they have stated they intend to do this.
So it appears the question about whether a monkey can own the copyright to a photo it takes is still not yet decided.
Stay tuned!