Who owns the copyright in a monkey selfie? Part 2
Every now and again a legal case will capture the imagination of the public. The monkey ‘selfie’ case is one such example.
Back in August 2014 we reported on the exploits of UK wildlife photographer David Slater. In 2011 Mr. Slater took up residence with a troop of crested black macaque monkeys in Indonesia with the aim of capturing photographs of them going about their daily lives. As part of his efforts, Mr Slater set up a camera with a shutter release cable which he left alone in the hope that one of the monkeys would use it. Miraculously one monkey snapped a superb selfie.
In the UK, copyright law is set out in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA). The CDPA’s primary purpose is to reward the inventor/author for their conception of original works, that is, works where they have expended independent effort to create their idea.
There is no official procedure that needs to be observed in the UK for a piece of work to obtain copyright protection. Copyright protection automatically applies to all works recorded in any form provided that they meet certain requirements:
- A work must:
- fall into one of the categories of work protected by copyright under UK law; and
- qualify for protection under UK law (dependent upon the nationality of the inventor/author or place of original publication).
- The term of copyright must not have expired.
This unique case was brought by the campaign group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) who felt that copyright in the picture belonged to the monkey in question, Ella. PETA brought its case in the United States and on 08 January 2015 a Court in San Francisco ruled that copyright protection cannot be extended to animals. Common sense would appear to have prevailed although it’s yet to become clear whether or not the US Court has definitively accepted that the copyright belongs to Mr Slater instead.
The monkey business is set to continue with reports that Mr Slater intends to sue Wikipedia in the UK for its use of the image without his permission.
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