In 2011, British wildlife photographer David Slater traveled to the Tangkoko Batuangus Nature Reserve on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi to photograph endangered crested black macaques9. Slater, then 46 and from Coleford in Gloucestershire, spent three days shadowing a troop of about 25 macaques with a local guide, gradually gaining their trust1.

Slater set up his Canon EOS 5D on a tripod with predictive autofocus, a motorized winding mechanism, and a flash gun, configuring the settings to capture facial close-ups if any of the curious monkeys approached11. He moved away from the camera, and the macaques moved in. They fingered the equipment, pressed buttons, and were fascinated by their own reflections in the large glass lens11. "They were quite mischievous, jumping all over my equipment," Slater told The Guardian. "One hit the button. The sound got his attention and he kept pressing it"1.

One macaque, later nicknamed Naruto, took several remarkably clear photographs of herself5. Out of hundreds of shots, most were out of focus, but a handful were striking self-portraits3. The entire interaction lasted about 30 minutes before the dominant male in the group became agitated and Slater had to pull back11.

The Monkey Selfie's greatest impact was legal, not memetic. The *Naruto v. Slater* case forced courts, legislators, and copyright offices worldwide to formally address whether non-human entities could be considered authors under the law13.

The U.S. Copyright Office's decision to explicitly exclude animal-created works from protection set a precedent that now directly shapes the AI-generated art debate. In 2026, the same legal framework built around Naruto's selfie is being applied to works produced by image generators like DALL-E and Midjourney, with the Copyright Office citing the monkey selfie precedent when declining to register autonomously generated AI works12.

The case also drew attention to the endangered status of the Celebes crested macaque. Slater noted that the photographs led to increased tourism to the Tangkoko reserve, with visitors hoping for similar encounters. Ironically, the resulting attention meant that close contact with the macaques had to be discouraged to protect the animals from biting incidents and disease transmission9.

ITV's legal expert Christina Michalos observed that under UK law, the outcome might have differed: "Where an artistic work is generated by a computer, the person who makes the arrangements for creation is the copyright owner," she noted, suggesting Slater could have had a stronger claim on grounds of fairness since he owned the equipment and configured the camera settings8.

The copyright dispute escalated steadily after the initial viral moment. When Slater discovered his photos on Wikimedia Commons listed as public domain, he demanded payment or removal. The Wikimedia Foundation refused. A spokesperson told The Huffington Post: "It's clear the monkey was the photographer. Because the monkey took the picture, it means that there was no one on whom to bestow copyright"8.

This wasn't just a philosophical question for Slater. He was a working photographer who relied on licensing income. In an August 2014 BBC interview, he claimed the Wikimedia situation had cost him at least £10,000 in lost revenue. "I made £2,000 in the first year after it was taken," Slater said. "After it went on Wikipedia all interest in buying it went"4. By some estimates, the photograph had been shared and republished over 50 million times10.

On December 22, 2014, the U.S. Copyright Office released updated guidelines titled "Copyrightable Authorship: What Can Be Registered," explicitly stating that works created by non-human animals were not eligible for copyright protection. A photograph taken by a monkey was cited as a specific example5.

Then came the most unusual chapter. On September 22, 2015, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals filed a lawsuit against Slater and book publisher Blurb, Inc., who had published the photos in Slater's book *Wildlife Personalities*5. PETA argued as Naruto's "next friend" that the macaque should be recognized as the legal copyright holder and receive all financial benefits from the image's use13. The case, *Naruto v. Slater*, drew international media attention for its novelty.

In January 2016, U.S. District Judge William Orrick III dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that copyright protections did not extend to non-human animals9. The judge acknowledged that Naruto was the "cause-in-fact" of the photograph but found that the Copyright Act simply did not grant animals the right to sue or hold copyright13. That same month, Slater announced plans to sue Wikipedia for displaying the image without his approval5.

PETA appealed in March 2016, and the case returned to the courts. In September 2017, the parties reached a settlement: Slater agreed to donate 25% of any future revenue generated by the monkey selfie photographs to charitable organizations dedicated to protecting the habitat of crested macaques in Indonesia9. In 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals formally upheld the lower court's ruling that copyright protection is limited to human authors9.

The legal costs were devastating for Slater. The prolonged litigation and loss of licensing income left him bankrupt, despite his global recognition as the man behind one of the internet's most famous photographs9. Legal scholars noted the irony: UK copyright law, which recognizes "the person who makes the arrangements for creation" as the owner of computer-generated works, might have offered Slater a stronger claim had the case been litigated there8.

The Wikimedia Foundation maintained its position throughout, noting that volunteer Wikipedians follow careful image use policies and that the monkey selfie met their criteria for public domain content. "Volunteer Wikipedians have great respect for the rights of content creators around the world," the Foundation wrote, while insisting the law was clear on non-human authorship7.