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# "Monkey Selfie" Dispute Ends as PETA and Photographer Reach Settlement
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/monkey-selfie-dispute-ends-as-peta-and-photographer-reach-settlement/
- Published: 2017-09-12T19:02:37.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:26:38.000Z
- Description: Photographer David Slater will donate a quarter of any revenue from the viral "monkey selfies" to charities working to preserve the crested macaque's habitat in Indonesia.
- Author: Benjamin Sutton
- Tags: In Brief, Copyright, PETA, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:30(2016, 2017, part 3)

![Self-portrait of a female Celebes crested macaque (Macaca nigra) in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, who had picked up photographer David Slater's camera and photographed herself with it. (via Wikimedia Commons)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/09/monkey-self-portrait-lead.jpg)

Self-portrait of a female Celebes crested macaque (Macaca nigra) in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, who had picked up photographer David Slater’s camera and photographed herself with it (via Wikimedia Commons)

The legal battle over a batch of self-portraits taken by a macaque has been driving lawyers bananas [for years](https://hyperallergic.com/239309/peta-sues-on-behalf-of-monkeyselfie-macaque/), but it appears to finally be [resolved](http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/12/asia/monkey-selfie-settlement/index.html?ref=hyperallergic.com). Today the British nature photographer David Slater and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) [settled](http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-monkey-selfie-lawsuit-20170912-story.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) their dispute, and Slater pledged to donate 25% of any revenue from the use and sale of the so-called “[monkey selfie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey%5Fselfie%5Fcopyright%5Fdispute?ref=hyperallergic.com)” images to charities that protect crested macaques’ habitats in Indonesia.

“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,” a [joint statement](https://www.peta.org/blog/settlement-reached-monkey-selfie-case-broke-new-ground-animal-rights/?ref=hyperallergic.com) explains.

The viral and [legally confounding](https://hyperallergic.com/142437/going-ape-over-a-photographs-copyright/) photos were taken in 2008, when Slater visited Indonesia to photograph crested macaques, and a six-year-old named Naruto took his camera, snapping a series of selfies. In 2014, [Slater sued Wikimedia](https://hyperallergic.com/142437/going-ape-over-a-photographs-copyright/) for putting the images online, claiming they were his copyrighted work. In 2015, [PETA sued him](https://hyperallergic.com/239309/peta-sues-on-behalf-of-monkeyselfie-macaque/), claiming that Naruto should own the copyright to the works. In early 2016, a federal judge in San Francisco [ruled](https://hyperallergic.com/after-peta-lawsuit-judge-rules-monkey-doesnt-own-the-copyright-to-his-selfie/) that Naruto could not own the copyright to the images because he is not human, a decision that PETA appealed. Today’s settlement puts an end to that appeal, and ensures that the “monkey selfies” will be money-makers for the macaques’ cause.