I wish this was The Onion or some satire site. Alas, no
(AP) A macaque monkey who took now-famous selfie photographs should be declared the copyright owner of the photos, rather than the nature photographer who positioned the camera, animal-rights activists contend in a novel lawsuit filed Tuesday.
The suit was filed in federal court in San Francisco by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. It seeks a court order allowing PETA 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.
The photos were taken during a 2011 trip to Sulawesi by British nature photographer David Slater. Through San Francisco-based self-publishing company Blurb, he has published a book called “Wildlife Personalities” that includes the “monkey selfie” photos.
In a sane world, the article would have ended with a fourth paragraph reading “The judge told PETA to STFU and GTFO, on pain of jail to for contempt and wasting the court’s time, at which point the judge directed the bailiff to escort the PETA representatives out of the building”. But, no, this story is actually 20 paragraphs long. For a monkey selfie.
