http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...-naruto-really-did-take-those-monkey-selfies/
Apparently, the monkey has already lost one lawsuit where PETA claimed:Ars Technica
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals isn't monkeying around. The animal rights group told a federal judge Friday that a monkey wrench is wrongly being thrown into its lawsuit claiming that a macaque monkey named Naruto is the rightful owner of the selfies the monkey allegedly snapped in the Tangkoko reserve on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in 2011.
In response to allegations that PETA is representing the wrong monkey, the animal rights group wrote in a court filing (PDF) to US District Judge William Orrick that "there is no doubt that, as stated in the complaint, Naruto is the macaque in the Monkey Selfies."
The legal filing comes ahead of a January hearing on PETA's lawsuit in which it is suing a publisher and David Slater, the British nature photographer whose camera was swiped by a monkey while the photographer was on a jungle shoot. Slater has published a book with the pictures a monkey took of himself. Now the monkey—via PETA—is seeking monetary damages for copyright infringement from Slater and his publisher.
What's your opinion?Had the Monkey Selfies been made by a human using Slater’s unattended camera, that human would be declared the photographs' author and copyright owner. While the claim of authorship by species other than homo sapiens may be novel, “authorship” under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq., is sufficiently broad so as to permit the protections of the law to extend to any original work, including those created by Naruto. Naruto should be afforded the protection of a claim of ownership, and the right to recover damages and other relief for copyright infringement....
Can a monkey have intellectual property rights?
If not, then should the law be changed to facilitate a monkey's intellectual property rights?
Separate but related, if a robot takes a picture, who owns the intellectual property rights to that picture?
Uno
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