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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and wildlife photographer David Slater have reached a settlement over the ownership of a photograph taken by an Indonesian macaque monkey named Naruto:
PETA; photographer David Slater; his company, Wildlife Personalities, Ltd.; and self-publishing platform Blurb, Inc., have reached a settlement of the "monkey selfie" litigation. As a part of the arrangement, Slater has agreed to donate 25 percent of any future revenue derived from using or selling the monkey selfies to charities that protect the habitat of Naruto and other crested macaques in Indonesia.
According to a joint statement, "PETA and David Slater agree that this case raises important, cutting-edge issues about expanding legal rights for nonhuman animals, a goal that they both support, and they will continue their respective work to achieve this goal."
General Counsel for PETA Jeff Kerr told the New York Times that he did not know how much money Slater made on the photos in the past, but also that PETA is glad Naruto will benefit from the images in the future.
A federal judge previously dismissed the case, but PETA appealed. PETA has dropped its appeal so the question of nonhuman ownership of "intellectual property" will not be answered by a higher court.
Also at Ars Technica.
Previously: Monkey Selfie Case May Undo Evolution of the Web
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @07:47AM (2 children)
The reason, most likely, is that an Indonesian court would have had a prolonged all-hands laugh at this suit, and then quickly and efficiently would have thrown PETAs crumpled documents into the non-recycling trash bin. Without a press conference. Much less months of continuing press coverage. And "Foreign court thinks we're a bunch of foolish kids, then ignores us" does not make for very good self-advertisements, no matter how much you spin it.
On a personal note, I think that PETAs lawsuit had equally much standing as the photographer's claim to copyright: none. The only regrettable thing here is how long they tied up a perfectly useful court with their bullshit.
(Score: 1) by evilcam on Thursday September 14 2017, @03:41AM
I genuinely feel bad for the poor bloke who had to defend this nonsense.
He didn't make much money off of the licensing to the photo (according to Slater in an article for the Guardian it was about enough to cover the cost of the trip) and lost shitloads in legal fees, just so PETA could, what? Big up themselves for "defending" an animal that was in no way harmed or disadvantaged by the action. Hell, there was even a question over whether the right monkey was suing...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:52PM
I strongly disagree on the copyright. The monkey selfies would not have happened without serious effort [wikipedia.org] on the part of the photographer.
So first, Slater, the photographer traveled to Indonesia, located and followed a troop of macaques for several days, and then contrived a situation where the monkeys might take pictures of themselves - risking some rather expensive equipment in the process. And then processed these photos so that we might view them. Meanwhile the monkeys had no idea that they were creating any sort of intellectual property. They were just playing around with this cool toy that the human brought. My view is that the copyright is quite valid and applied like it should.