A judge has ruled that a macaque monkey who took grinning selfies (pictured) does not own the copyright to the pictures.
Activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals brought the case in San Francisco on behalf of the Indonesian monkey Naruto. He became famous after a photographer published pictures taken by six-year-old Naruto with his camera. PETA petitioned the court to have the macaque ‘declared the author and owner of his photograph’.
But in a preliminary ruling, Judge William Orrick said that ‘while Congress and the President can extend the protection of law to animals as well as humans, there is no indication that they did so in the Copyright Act’.
The photos were taken in 2011 on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi by British nature photographer David Slater. He later published a book of his photographs, which included two selfies taken by Naruto. – Daily Mail