A U.S. court has ruled that a macaque monkey who took pictures of himself cannot own the copyright to the photographs.

    The ruling resulted from a lawsuit filed last year by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who sought the right to administer proceeds derived from photos taken by a monkey named Naruto in Sulawesi, Indonesia, in 2011, using a camera belonging to British nature photographer David Slater.

    The lawsuit claimed that Naruto came upon the unattended camera, subsequently creating the selfies through “purposeful and voluntary actions … unaided by Slater.”

    Naruto’s actions as an author, said the suit, included “purposely pushing the shutter release multiple times (and) understanding the cause-and-effect relationship between pressing the shutter release, the noise of the shutter, and the change to his reflection in the camera lens.”

    However, Slater’s lawyers contended that the photographer had set up the photos by “building a trustful, friendly relationship” with a group of macaques over a number days, and had made decisions about the position and settings of the camera he’d left in the reserve.

    U.S. District Judge William Orrick, presiding at a federal court in San Francisco, ruled that “while Congress and the president can extend the protection of law to animals as well as humans, there is no indication that they did so in the Copyright Act.” “I just don’t see that it could go as broadly as beyond humans,” he added.

    PETA issued a statement prior to the ruling saying: “The U.S. Copyright Act grants copyright ownership of a ‘selfie’ to the ‘author’ of the photograph, and there’s nothing in the law limiting such ownership on the basis of species. Naruto has been accustomed to cameras throughout his life, saw himself in the reflection of the lens, made the connection between pressing the shutter and the change in his reflection, and posed for the pictures he took.

    “As ‘next friend’ to Naruto, we’re seeking the court’s permission to manage the copyright of the photos, license them for commercial use, and use 100 percent of the proceeds to benefit Naruto and his community, whose habitat and very existence are under threat.”(SD-Agencies)