Man sued by monkey (macaque)

Well, in fairness, PETA didn't start this. Slater, the photographer, started it by suing others who reproduced the photograph, claiming that he had the copyright it it. The US copyright office has ruled that, in its view, there can be no copyright in a photograph taken by an animal, a view which is (to put it mildly) not helpful to Slater's case. Slater has nevertheless continued his proceedings against, among others, the Wikipedia Foundation. (The photograph is available on Wikimedia Commons.) Slater hopes that the courts will not uphold the Copyright Office view.

PETA, like Slater, rejects the US Copyright Office view that there can be no copyright in a photograph taken by an animal. However, unlike Slater, they take the view that the copyright belongs not to the person who set up the opportunity for the animal to take the photograph, but rather to a trust for the benefit of the community of animals involved.

When last I checked, PETA had lost their proceedings, because the judge took the US copyright office view, but had appealed, and the appeal was yet to be heard. If the appeal court confirms that there can be no copyright in a photograph taken by an animal, that will also dispose of Slater's proceedings against Wikipedia and others.

This court action will die on the vine.

glynf wrote: »

Can see it now... Lots of screeching followed by throwing a healthy sized lump of ****e at the jury.

and that was just from the photographer

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

I hope this is drawn out to it's natural conclusion where the monkey is put in the stand. For fairness and equality sake half the lawyer cross-examining the case should be a monkey. Speaking of monkeys, there should be some monkey representation on the jury otherwise it should be called a mistrial.

I , for one , would make it my business to attend that trial.

There might even be a film later , soundtrack of course with hits from " the Monkees".
🎶 then I saw her face , now I'm a believer"🎵

So the monkey gets the money like in the pink panther

alchemist33 wrote: »

If this was chimpanzee it would have been settled out of court months ago. But with a macaque, nooooo. They're probably the most litigious of the primates.

That's because chimpanzees are constantly making false claims. Que bonobo.

Another publicity scam by PETA (people eating tasty animals). They are a fairly sad bunch.

gramar wrote: »

How much is boards paying for the use of the photo on this page?

I've no idea? Although I'd guess if they were contacted by someone claiming to own the copyright they'd probably pull it.

I was also just wondering whether the news articles yesterday about how the guy is broke had paid anything to use the photo.

The kick in the nuts is that copy of the picture actually has WikiCommons claiming copyright, which is bizarre.

Gravelly wrote: »

Ouch - you'll have the photographers out to get you after that - they'll torture you by making you stand in one spot for ages, sucking in your gut and grinning.

Will it be gorilla warfare?