Who Owns the “Monkey Selfie?”
Steven C. Beer is an attorney who has worked in the film and music industries for decades. His focus is on representing industry leaders in music, television, and film. As part of his work, Steven C. Beer comes across copyright disputes, and a very curious case in that field arose recently when a monkey took a selfie of itself.
The case involves a Celebes crested macaque who used a nature photographers camera to, seemingly unwittingly, take a “selfie.” Some of the pictures in the camera were subsequently used by Wikimedia Commons, citing that the photographer, David Slater, had no ownership claim given that they were created by the animal. That’s where the dispute arose.
It’s not entirely clear who is in the right legally, but in a related lawsuit, the Ninth Circuit Court agreed that animals have no right to copyright claims, and therefore the picture would fall into the public domain. Experts are divided on the matter, and their opinions seem to depend on the interpretation of a meaningful creative contribution and whether this was made by the photographer.
The case involves a Celebes crested macaque who used a nature photographers camera to, seemingly unwittingly, take a “selfie.” Some of the pictures in the camera were subsequently used by Wikimedia Commons, citing that the photographer, David Slater, had no ownership claim given that they were created by the animal. That’s where the dispute arose.
It’s not entirely clear who is in the right legally, but in a related lawsuit, the Ninth Circuit Court agreed that animals have no right to copyright claims, and therefore the picture would fall into the public domain. Experts are divided on the matter, and their opinions seem to depend on the interpretation of a meaningful creative contribution and whether this was made by the photographer.
