Circuit Court makes landmark ruling about monkey business

Cheetahs never prosper. Nor do monkeys, at least in court.

Get it?

Last month, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit made its latest high-profile ruling, after such decisions as (I'm guessing) Plessy v. Ferguson, Dick York v. Dick Sargent and Joe v. Volcano. This time, it was Naruto et al v. David Slater.

The appeals court ruled against Naruto. Kind of.

If you've been living in a tree (that joke will make sense before the end of this paragraph), here's the synopsis: Naruto is a macaque monkey from Sulawesi, Indonesia, who picked up an unattended camera in 2011 and started taking selfies.

Fine, right? Fantastic, actually. The photos turned out beautifully, better than 90 percent of selfies posted on social media.

Well, wildlife photographer David Slater, whose camera Naruto used, liked them, too. He published the photos in a book, claiming copyright.

Yes.

David Slater used the photos taken by a monkey and claimed that they were legally his.

That's like me taking the work done by 1 million monkeys to create this column and claiming copyright. It is wrong, therefore I won't do so. This belongs to the monkeys, so send them your cranky emails.

Fortunately, we have an organization like the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the protector of the animal world. PETA filed suit as a "next friend" to Naruto, and the case went through the courts. Would Naruto win? Did a human steal money from him? It was unclear.

Then, last fall, PETA and Slater settled. They reached an agreement requiring Slater to donate 25 percent of his earnings from the book to charities that help Naruto's homeland.

Makes sense, right? It's all over, right?

Well, the court decided to weigh in anyway. And it addressed the 800-pound gorilla in the room – the question of whether the 35-pound macaque was fairly represented.

The court sided against PETA, but with Naruto – which took a little bit of work, since PETA represented Naruto.

First of all, the court threw out the case, saying that until Congress rules that animals can sue, they are forbidden to do so.

But the court slapped PETA, saying the settlement the organization reached with Slater didn't "directly benefit" Naruto, but served the best interests of PETA. The decision called out PETA for using Naruto as an "unwitting pawn in its ideological goals."

We call that monkey business, right?

So Naruto lost the case and PETA lost its settlement.

For PETA, it was a slap on the wrist, but some good news. The organization pointed out that the 9th Circuit recognized that animals aren't banned by the Constitution from bringing a claim in federal court. Congress just needs to pass legislation allowing them to do so.

Theoretically, animals will be able to someday sue – which might be bad news if you forget to feed your dog or cat.

Meanwhile, Naruto becomes a footnote: The loser in a landmark lawsuit that attempted to force a human photographer to compensate the monkey who took great photos.

It's bananas, right?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.