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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: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday September 13 2017, @11:25PM (3 children)
None is so blind, as those who will not see. khallow, you do not see the reason, but that does not mean it is absent! I do not see how to get this across to you, because if you really do not see it, it is very hard to show it to you! I have tried whacking you upside the head, but you are a very, very stubborn ideologue!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday September 14 2017, @02:37AM (2 children)
Other people don't have this problem. So maybe you ought to learn how they do it?
If whacking people upside the head were possible via the Internet, we would all have headaches.
And why wouldn't I be? Whether my ideology comes via rational means or not, you aren't trying an approach that has ever worked. If the ideology is irrationally derived, then the saying applies, "you can't reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into." Even when they do change their minds (and believe it or not, even the most irrational often do over the course of a human lifetime), it'll often be to flip over into another irrationally held belief.
If it's rationally derived, then a considerable amount of thought went into the creation of the ideology. Again, it wouldn't be reversed merely because a certain philosopher has feelings. One would need a similar effort to uproot what has been done or to at least find fatal contradictions in the beliefs of the ideology. Merely rehashing old arguments or pulling assertions out of one's ass wouldn't suffice.
Let us note also, that this discussion of ideology is a red herring. My beliefs are not threatened by non-human animals owning property. In fact, I have already on several occasions (usually involving discussion of the Austrian School of economics) discussed non-human economics and even non-humans making economically relevant decisions in human economic systems. Owning property when possible is a natural extension of these prior activities.
The problem is what happens when the law entertains the conceit that an animal can own something when it can't understand the concept of property? For example, animals frequently are territorial which in a weak sense is like ownership. But a huge difference is we don't decide who owns a house on the basis of who is the bigger bear or has the better intimidation behavior. Property laws have as a major consequence that they usually protect ownership of property by the weak from the strong. Even when these laws can be gamed to take property from the weak, the rituals and forms must be observed (and they go well beyond bluffing behavior in the wild). One can't simply take. This is contrary to the usual situation found in nature where the stronger animal takes from the weaker one.
Thus, animal ownership by animals not smart enough to understand property rights (and respect rules that run counter to territorial conflicts in nature) will actually be done via human proxies. That opens a bunch of ideologically-invariant cans of worms such as conflicts of interest (such a position is very easy to corrupt to serve the proxy rather than the animal, no matter what belief is being considered) and ignorance (how can we understand what is best for our animal wards when we don't really understand them or for that matter the consequences of our own actions?).
One doesn't have to ideologically agree with me in order to be harmed by bad law exploiting animals as puppets or figureheads for corrupt schemes. My view is that such animals for the most part can't bear the burdens that we would impose on them with this sort of law. Thus, it is not a sane approach to apply human law of property to non-humans with no capacity to understand or obey.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:27AM (1 child)
Ah, an actual response! I will have to ponder this, khallow. Two initial questions: are you talking monkeys, trees, or birds? And, what exactly do you mean by "puppets" and "figureheads"?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:40PM
For example, the current lawsuit of the above story was purportedly to defend the IP rights of a tribe of macaque monkeys, but the practical impact is that the self-appointed, would-be proxies for these monkeys (PETA) get a lot of cheap publicity. The monkeys are mere figureheads for a purely human scheme.