Monday Madness: The Curious Case of the Selfie-Taking Monkey

by Angela K. Durden
Technology inventor protecting creator's copyrights. Business writer, novelist, songwriter, and Citizen Journalist.

I shall go on record here as saying that the organization known as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, is nuts, insane, gone round the bend one too many times. Or, to use a term they might understand even more, they are barking mad.

A monkey picked up David Slater's camera and managed to mash a button just as the lens was turned toward its face. Monkey selfie ensued.

Naruto (L) and photographer David Slater (R). Who owns the copyright?

Upon seeing the snap, as a capitalist at heart you know Slater had to say "Damn. I can sell that and make some money." Which is what he proceeded to do with no problems whatsoever as the image was considered to be in the public domain. According to www.theregister.co.uk:

"The US Copyright Office agreed that the laws of the land did not apply to offshore simians, nor to entities who did not consciously have the intent to create an artefact."

In other words, if your US-owned camera is manipulated by any animal living outside the US whether in the wild or domesticated or in an animal park or zoo, or by any other kind of entity, whether human or animal or robotic, who simply accidentally manipulates your camera without having any intent to create, well then, that image is free to be used by anybody anywhere.

Personally I think that is just bogus in the extreme as without my camera/recording device, said entity or animal could not have made the picture. Further, my uploading the image to a computer or putting it on social media, t-shirts, coffee mugs, clocks, and such, is a result of my hard work and marketing genius.

And while I agree that code monkeys make the Internet work, these code monkeys are human. Still, the question begs:

Why should others get to freely benefit from my investment of effort, money, and time?

However, Slater was happily benefiting from the picture and everything was going fine until PETA heard about it. Now, self-righteously inclined PETA makes out that Slater is stealing from the monkey. Lawsuit!

You and I, we both know that a dog would just as soon chew on a camera. No dog has ever said "Hey, I'm gonna put on my sexy and send Mama-San some nice pics that will make sure she never forgets me."

But PETA thinks that will happen. PETA believes that the monkey, who has no bank account, should monetarily benefit from a happy yet accidental event. But how do you pay a monkey? PETA says they will be happy if Slater gives a percentage of future earnings from the picture to simian charities.

Of course, that result came after much wrangling by PETA's attorney about the rights of the heirs of the monkey is question.

Is PETA now in the Indonesian monkey representation charity bidnezz? I don't know. But their attorney sure knows how to play dodge ball. Read more here.