IP rights for animals is an argument for Congress, not courts, judge tells PETA

A US court has ordered the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to take its ‘monkey selfie’ argument to Congress after it dismissed a complaint asserting that a Macaque ape should own the copyright to a photo it took of itself.

On Thursday, January 28, Judge William Orrick of the US District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed PETA’s claim that the copyright to the ‘monkey selfie’ photograph belonged to Naruto, an ape based in Indonesia.

The photograph was taken during UK national David Slater’s trip to Indonesia in 2011. During the trip, Naruto took a number of photographs of itself.

Slater used the photograph, which was popular on social media, in a published collection of images called “Wildlife Personalities”, published in 2014.

In September, PETA sued Slater for copyright infringement. The organisation argued that all royalties derived from the image should be directed to helping Naruto and his species.

In response, Slater filed a motion-to-dismiss the case.

Earlier this month, after hearing arguments in the case, Orrick rejected the notion that a monkey can own copyright, but did not rule on infringement.

But in last week’s ruling Orrick accepted Slater’s motion.

Issuing his ruling Orrick said: “Here, the Copyright Act does not plainly extend the concept of authorship or statutory standing to animals. To the contrary, there is no mention of animals anywhere in the act.

“Naruto is not an author within the meaning of Copyright Act,” Orrick said. He added that if PETA wanted to change the law it’s an “argument that should be made to Congress and the president, not to me.”

Despite the setback, PETA said it will continue its battle to obtain "fundamental rights for non-human animals for their own sake, not in relation to how they can be exploited by humans".