14 September, 2017
The camera's owner, David J. Slater, agreed to donate 25% of future revenue of the images taken by the monkey to charitable organisations that protect Naruto, who lives in the Tangkoko Reserve on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, and other crested macaques.
A United States lawsuit has given a whole new meaning to the expression "monkey business" after crested macaque settled his dispute with British wildlife photographer David Slater out of court.
The case of the world's most litigious selfie has come to a close.
It added: "Naruto and the famous "monkey selfie" photographs that he undeniably took clearly demonstrate that he and his fellow macaques ... are highly intelligent, thinking, sophisticated beings worthy of having legal ownership of their own intellectual property and holding other rights as members of the legal community".
"PETA and David Slater agree that this case raises important, cutting-edge issues about expanding legal rights for nonhuman animals, a goal that they both support, and they will continue their respective work to achieve this goal", the groups said in a joint statement. "Naruto is no different since he is a macaque". I duly moved away and bingo, they moved in, fingering the toy, pressing the buttons and fingering the lens.
Slater published the selfies in his 2014 book, Wildlife Personalities. PETA argued that Naruto ought to have been recognised as the true copyright owner under USA law because he "authored the Monkey Selfies by his independent, autonomous actions" and Slater infringed Naruto's copyright by selling the images as his own. Moyer of the Washington Post. "It wasn't serendipitous monkey behavior", the photographer told Julie Carrie Wong of the Guardian. PETA's general counsel, Jeff Kerr, said the deal would offer protection to the crested macaque whose existence is threatened by poaching. "Surely it matters that the right monkey is suing me".
