INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The picture went viral and became one of the most shared selfies everSan Francisco: A US court has ruled that a
monkey who snapped a selfie on a wildlife photographer's camera does not own the copyright to the image, which became an internet
sensation.The ruling late Monday is expected to draw a line under a protracted legal battle between British photographer David Slater and
the animal rights group PETA, which filed a suit on behalf of Naruto the monkey.The case began in 2011 when the crested macaque monkey
approached a camera Slater had set up on the forested Indonesian island of Sulawesi and managed to press the button, taking a picture of
himself with what appeared to be a broad grin on his face.The picture recorded on Slater's camera quickly went viral, and become one of the
most shared selfies ever.But in 2015, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a US-based animal rights group, filed a suit on Naruto's
behalf, claiming the photographer had infringed Naruto's copyright since the monkey had taken the picture himself.An initial court ruling
dismissed PETA's case, but Slater still agreed last October to donate 25 percent of the earnings from the picture to charities that protect
the habitat of macaque monkeys.PETA sought to drop the case entirely, but a US appeals court made the unusual move of stepping in anyway and
issuing a ruling that criticized the group for dropping the case despite having presented itself as the monkey's "next friend," a legal
status normally used in court on behalf people unable to represent themselves.The California appeals court ruled that animals cannot bring
copyright infringement suits and said PETA had put its own goals ahead of the monkey's despite its status as the animal's "next
friend.""Puzzlingly, while representing to the world that 'animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse
in any way'," the three-judge court said, "PETA seems to employ Naruto as an unwitting pawn in its ideological goals."PETA responded by
saying that the monkey "is discriminated against simply because he's a nonhuman animal.(Except for the headline, this story has not been
edited by staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)Click for more trending news
