Sides settle over legal monkey business

Monkey see. Monkey sue. Monkey settle. Attorneys representing a macaque monkey have agreed to a compromise in a case where they asserted the animal owned the copyright to selfie photos it had shot with a photographer’s camera.

Under the deal, the photographer agreed to donate 25 per cent of any future revenue from the images to charities dedicated to protecting crested macaques in Indonesia, said the lawyers from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals who filed the lawsuit.

Attorneys for the group and the photographer, David Slater, yesterday asked the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss the case and throw out a lower-court decision that said animals cannot own copyrights.

Andrew J. Dhuey, an attorney for Slater, declined to comment on how much money the photos have generated or whether Slater would keep all of the remaining 75 per cent of future revenue.

“Peta and David Slater agree that this case raises important, cuttingedge issues about expanding legal rights for non-human animals, a goal that they both support, and they will continue their respective work to achieve this goal,” Slater and Peta said in a joint statement. There was no immediate ruling from the 9th Circuit.

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 Slater’s camera.

Lawyers for Slater argued that his company, Wildlife Personalities Ltd, owns worldwide commercial rights to the photos taken on a 2011 trip to Sulawesi, Indonesia, with an unattended camera owned by Slater.