The verdict is in: monkey selfies cannot be copyrighted.
A public draft of a U.S. Copyright Office report, released Tuesday, said it will register only works created by human beings.
Hidden among the document's 1,222 pages is article 306, which covers The Human Authorship Requirement: "The U.S. Copyright Office will register an original work of authorship, provided that the work was created by a human being," the record said. "The Office will not register works produced by nature, animals, or plants."
The first, very specific, example: a photograph taken by a monkey. It turns out a mural painted by an elephant doesn't count, either.
British nature photographer David Slater spent three days in the Indonesian wilderness in 2011, shadowing a pack of macaque monkeys, becoming a part of their tribe. Once comfortable with each other, the photographer set his camera on a tripod, framed the shot, and left the shutter button for a female monkey to operate.
The extraordinary image earned Slater £2,000 ($3,365) in sales in the first year. But once it hit Wikipedia - and was freely available for anyone to share - "all interest in buying it went," he said recently, estimating a loss of at least £10,000 in sales.
Slater appealed to Wikipedia parent site Wikimedia, claiming copyright privileges, and asked that the monkey selfie be removed. But the site denied the request.
The female crested black macaque made headlines again this month, when Wikipedia released its first-ever transparency report, which discussed the primate picture and Slater's legal challenge.
Now, the U.S. Copyright Office has stepped in, siding with Wikipedia.
The agency's report also rejects work "purportedly created by divine or supernatural beings." However, if Slater argues that the photograph was "inspired by a divine spirit," he may have a fighting chance.