The Ninth Circuit recently ruled in its case concerning monkey selfie photographs.
As many remember, in 2011, while visiting an Indonesian rainforest, nature photographer David Slater left his camera unattended. According to Slater, a monkey known as Naruto, picked up Slater’s camera and took multiple “selfies”. The selfies went viral.
After Slater used the photographs in a book that he published, PETA sued Slater for infringing the monkey’s copyright. The questions became: Does PETA have standing to sue on behalf of Naruto? If so, is a monkey an author for purposes of the Copyright Act of 1976?