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Simian Selfie Update

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For those who can't get enough of this off-topic topic ... 
For background, see prior posts from 2011, 2014, and September and November of last year, particularly the September one.

Associated Press reports:

A macaque monkey who took now-famous selfie photographs cannot be declared the copyright owner of the photos, a federal judge said Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick said in a tentative ruling in federal court in San Francisco 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."

The lawsuit filed last year by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sought a court order allowing PETA to represent the monkey and let it to administer all proceeds from the photos for the benefit of the monkey, which it identified as 6-year-old Naruto, and other crested macaques living in a reserve on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
A bit of background on what a "tentative decision" is.  It is common in trial courts (at least in California) for a judge considering a motion to give a tentative decision before the hearing based on the written arguments.  That helps focus the oral argument.  It's pretty rare for judges to change their minds based on the oral argument, so the final decision generally ends up being in line with the tentative decision, often with some adjustments and corrections based on what is said at the argument.

The tentative decision, in its entirety, is:

The Court announces the tentative opinion, in line with the Ninth Circuit's opinion in Cetacean Community v Bush, 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. The Copyright Office's Compendium is consistent with the Court's understanding. Oral argument heard concerning the motion to dismiss. Motion taken under submission; written order to follow.
Before even getting to that, though, I think there is an important threshold question here.  The plaintiff in this case is listed as "Naruto, a Crested Macaque, by and through his Next Friends, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Inc."  How does PETA come to represent Naruto?  A representative generally gets to assert the legal rights of someone else through designation by the principal, appointment by a court, or a natural relationship such as a parent for a child.  None of these exists here.  How can PETA simply waltz into court and announce it is representing a beast with no capacity to appoint it and with no appointment by a court and no natural relationship?  I hope the written order will address that, and I look forward to seeing it.

1 Comment

I'm so glad you addressed the question of how it is that PETA gets to represent the monkey. I have been puzzling over that since this case was first reported.

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