The Washington Post reported last week that, in the Monkey Selfie
appeal, a "prominent anthropologist at the University of Notre Dame" has filed an amicus brief arguing that "[t]here is no dispute that Naruto created the images in question. Naruto is, therefore, the author." That misses the point, I think. That's a
scientific conclusion. The question in the case is a
legal one: does it make sense to consider animals to be authors
in order to achieve the purposes of the Copyright Act? On that question,
Mike Masnick and
Jordan Weissmann have the better of the argument.