The “Monkey Selfie” Case: Can Non-Humans Hold Copyrights?

Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 12:00 pm Harvard Law School campus Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East C (Room 2036, Second Floor) RSVP required to attend in person Event will be live webcast at 12:00 pm Complimentary plant-based lunch will be served

This event is being co-sponsored by the Harvard Law School Animal Law & Policy Program and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

After a photographer left his camera equipment out for a group of wild macaques to explore, the monkeys took a series of photos, including selfies. Once the photos were posted publicly, legal disputes arose around who should own the copyrights —the human photographer who engineered the situation, or the macaques who snapped the photos. This unique case raises the increasingly pertinent question as to whether non-humans—whether they be monkeys or artificial intelligence machines—can claim copyrights to their creations. Join Jon Lovvorn, Lecturer on Law and the Policy Director of Harvard Law School's Animal Law & Policy Program, as he hosts a discussion panel featuring the General Counsel of PETA, which sued on behalf of the monkey, and experts on copyright, cyber law, and intermediary liability issues.

About Jon Lovvorn

Jonathan Lovvorn is the first Policy Director of the Harvard Animal Law & Policy Program. Mr. Lovvorn is also a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and will teach our inaugural course on Farmed Animal Law & Policy this Fall. He previously taught the HLS seminar in Wildlife Law in both the Fall 2015 and Fall 2016 terms. In addition to teaching at Harvard, Mr. Lovvorn has taught Animal Law and Wildlife Law at a number of other law schools, including New York University, Georgetown, George Washington University, and most recently Yale. He also has authored several articles concerning animal law and environmental policy, most recently publishing Climate Change Beyond Environmentalism in the Georgetown Environmental Law Review, which focuses on the intersectional threats of climate change to animals, people, and the environment. For several years Mr. Lovvorn has been serving as Senior Vice President & Chief Counsel for the Humane Society of the United States, where he founded and managed the nation’s largest animal protection litigation program. He has argued dozens of successful cases on behalf of both animals and the environment, authored or co-authored hundreds of state and federal animal protection reform laws, and served as the primary legal strategist for most of the major animal protection ballot measures enacted over the last 15 years.

About Jeff Kerr

As general counsel to PETA and its international affiliates for nearly 25 years, Jeff Kerr built and leads the world's largest legal team working for animal rights. His team was named Corporate Counsel magazine's 2017 Best Legal Department, and his high-profile cases—including the 13th Amendment case Tilikum v. SeaWorld, the first two successful constitutional challenges to "ag-gag" laws, and the "Monkey Selfie" copyright case—have made headlines around the world and sparked a global conversation about the legal rights of