An Indonesian monkey that achieved Internetcelebrity with a grinning selfie cannot own thephotograph’s copyright, a federal judge said thisweek.
本周(1月3日至9日),美國一位聯邦法官稱,因大笑自拍在網上走紅的一只印尼猴子不擁有照片的版權。
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals had argued in United States District Court in SanFrancisco that the rights to the photograph, which was snapped using a photographer’sunattended camera, rightfully belonged to the monkey, a crested macaque.
善待動物組織(Ethical Treatment of Animals)在舊金山的美國地方法院為這只黑冠獼猴爭取照片所有權。照片是這只猴子用攝影師故意放在那里的相機自拍的。
In a tentative opinion on Wednesday, Judge William H. Orrick disagreed.
周三(1月6日),威廉·H·奧里克法官(William H. Orrick)在一份初步意見書上對他們的主張表示反對。
“While Congress and the president can extend the protection of law to animals as well ashumans,” he wrote, “there is no indication that they did so in the copyright act.”
The images were taken during a trip by the British photographer, David Slater, to theTangkoko Reserve on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in 2011. He put his camera on a tripodamid a troop of macaques, setting it so it would automatically focus and wind, and waited forthe animals to get curious.
Mr. Slater published a book, “Wildlife Personalities,” that included the pictures, and the imageswere widely shared online, including without permission by Wikipedia. When Mr. Slater askedthe crowd-sourced website to remove the image, it refused under much the same rationale asPETA: Mr. Slater didn’t press the shutter release, so the image was not his.
In September, PETA filed its lawsuit against Mr. Slater, his company, and Blurb, the companythat published his book, asking the judge to allow it to represent Naruto and distribute theimage’s proceeds for the benefit of the Indonesian reserve’s crested macaques, a criticallyendangered species.
The photographer’s lawyers asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that amonkey lacks legal standing. Its motion, at times, struck a mocking tone.
這位攝影師的律師們請求法官撤回起訴,理由是猴子沒有法律地位。這份動議書不時帶有揶揄口吻。
“A monkey, an animal-rights organization and a primatologist walk into federal court to sue forinfringement of the monkey’s claimed copyright. What seems like the setup for a punch line isreally happening.”
Judge Orrick explained from the bench on Wednesday that he had no authority to extendsuch rights to animals.
周三(1月6日),奧里克法官在法庭上解釋說,他無權將這樣的權利賦予動物。
“This is an issue for Congress and the president,” he said, according to Ars Technica. “If theythink animals should have the right of copyright, they’re free, I think, under the Constitution,to do that.”
Last July, another legal effort to reinterpret the rights of other primates failed to persuade ajudge. The Nonhuman Rights Project argued in a State Supreme Court in Manhattan that twoapes being held by a university for research were “legal persons,” highly intelligent and self-aware, and should be removed to a sanctuary. The judge took the case seriously, butultimately decided that under the law, Hercules and Leo were property, not people.
去年7月,另一次重新闡釋其他靈長類動物權利的法律行動也沒有贏得法官的支持。非人類權利計劃(Nonhuman Rights Project)在曼哈頓的州最高法院要求釋放一所大學拘禁的兩只用作研究的類人猿,稱它們是“法人”,具有很高的智商和自我意識,應該被送往保護區。那位法官認真對待這一案件,但是最終判定,依照法律,赫爾克里士(Hercules)和利奧(Leo)是財產,不是人。
Despite PETA’s setback this week, the group cast its unorthodox legal battle as a crucialstep toward enlarging the rights of animals.
盡管本周善待動物組織遇到了挫折,但是該組織認為自己的非正統法律訴訟是擴大動物權利的重要一步。
“We will continue to fight for Naruto and his fellow macaques,” Jeff Kerr, an attorney for PETA,said in a statement, adding “As my legal mentor used to say, ‘In social-cause cases,historically, you lose, you lose, you lose, and then you win.’”