Monkey See, Monkey Do… However Monkey Does Not Enjoy Copyright Protection

I know this story crested a few weeks ago, but who can resist it? A famous 1998 Molson Canadian ad posed a Canadian version of the infinite monkey theorem. The cheeky ad, showing a seemingly endless array of monkeys on typewriters, sidestepped the more important question about whether the monkeys as authors would enjoy copyright protection over the works they created.

A wildlife photographer's dispute with Wikimedia over ownership of photographs taken by primates in Indonesia has brought international attention to this pressing issue. The "Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, Third Edition" now explicitly states that photographs by monkeys are not eligible for copyright protection. Nor are elephant-paintings deserving of copyright. "Likewise," the Compendium notes dryly, "the Office cannot register a work purportedly created by divine or supernatural beings." Robots are also out of luck.