Photographer Wins Monkey Selfie Copyright Case, Court Slams PETA
Photographer David Slater has won his legal battle over that monkey selfie. A US appeals court ruled Monday that US copyright law doesn’t allow animals to file copyright infringement lawsuits. The decision, made by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, upheld a lower-court ruling that previously reached the same conclusion.
Slater and the animal rights group PETA, which sued Slater in 2015 on behalf of the monkey (named Naruto), reached a settlement last year to drop the case (with Slater agreeing to donate 25% of his profits from the photos to charities to protect Naruto). But the court decided to reject the request to have the case dismissed this month, stating that it wanted a legal precedent to be set for similar cases in the future.
That precedent is now established: humans can file copyright lawsuits, not animals.
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