A photographer will pay 25% of future royalties on selfies a monkey took to animal welfare charities. This is in a settlement between David Slater, the photographer/copyright owner, and PETA, which brought a lawsuit on behalf of the monkey. The animal rights group was seeking to extend copyright ownership to monkeys and all other nonhuman creatures.
Bananas: PETA sued on behalf of the monkey in 2015, seeking financial control of the photographs for the benefit of the monkey named Naruto that snapped the photos with the photographer’s camera. A district court ruled that an animal could not own a copyright, and PETA appealed to the 9th Circuit, which was in the process of considering the appeal.
“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,” say PETA and Slater in a joint statement.
BVWire could not locate any public statement from the monkey.