A crested macaque named Naruto picked up a wildlife photographer’s unattended camera in an Indonesian jungle in 2011, pressed the shutter and accidentally produced one of the most widely shared photographs on the internet. Four years later, that moment has ended up in a San Francisco federal court — with an animal rights organisation arguing the monkey should own the copyright.
PETA filed the lawsuit on behalf of Naruto this week, naming British photographer David Slater and US publishing company Blurb as defendants. Slater, whose camera was used to take the images, has published a book containing the photographs and maintains he holds the rights to them — a claim he says has been recognised under UK law. He described the legal action as deeply saddening.
The case rests on a contested reading of the US Copyright Act, which grants rights to the authors of original works. PETA argues the legislation does not restrict authorship to human beings, and that if a person had picked up Slater’s camera and taken the same pictures they would automatically hold the copyright. The same logic, the group contends, should apply regardless of species.
That argument sits directly at odds with the position of the US Copyright Office, which last year sided with Wikipedia in concluding that works produced by animals cannot be protected under copyright law. Wikimedia, which operates Wikipedia, has made the selfie freely available through its Wikimedia Commons platform on the basis that it belongs to no one — a decision Slater says has cost him significant income.
If the court rules in PETA’s favour, the organisation is asking to be appointed administrator of Naruto’s copyright, with any proceeds from licensing or commercial use of the images directed toward the welfare of the monkey, his wider social group, and the preservation of their natural habitat in Indonesia.
The lawsuit is the second time this year that US courts have been asked to extend legal rights associated with personhood to non-human primates. A New York state court last month rejected a separate case brought by the Nonhuman Rights Project on behalf of two chimpanzees held at a university research facility, who the group argued were being unlawfully deprived of their liberty.
A ruling in the monkey selfie case is expected to draw significant attention from legal scholars and intellectual property specialists, given its potential implications for how authorship and ownership are defined under US law.
