The monkey selfie copyright issue is solved

The US Copyright Office supported Wikimedia in the disagreement with photographer David Slater over the monkey photo by acknowledging that the image in question is classified as unprotected intellectual property.

As a reminder, British photographer David Slater requested that noncommercial organization Wikimedia Foundation remove the photograph taken by a monkey with his camera off their site. Wikimedia, in its turn, considered the image public domain and refused to comply with Slater’s request.

Two weeks after the shot first appeared in Wikipedia’s library of free images the case was solved by the US Copyright Office.

“The Office will not register works produced by nature, animals, or plants. Likewise, the Office cannot register a work purportedly created by divine or supernatural beings, although the Office may register a work where the application or the deposit copy(ies) state that the work was inspired by a divine spirit,” – the organization’s report states.