Who Owns the Copyright When a Monkey Takes a Selfie?
The idea that nature has legal standing is gaining acceptance, but in the real world of people and courts it can be one slippery banana peel
It was a case of monkey see, PETA sue.
In 2011, wildlife photographer David Slater licensed his “monkey selfies” of endangered Celebes crested macaques to a British news service, and the wry, whimsical shots charmed the world—at least, the world reached via the internet. Though the pictures went viral overnight, Slater had been traveling to Indonesia for years to shoot photos of the macaques, and these pics were made only after spending two days on the island of Sulawesi with a group of a small primates to gain their trust. At first he put the camera on a tripod with a self timer and stepped away so the creatures could investigate it, but it wasn’t until he attached a dangling cable release and the monkeys could trigger the shots themselves that he got the images he’d envisioned.
The photos and their capture had all the elements of a feel-good story, but things quickly turned sour. Wikimedia Commons posted the best-known image, one of
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