An Indonesian monkey that achieved Internet celebrity with a grinning selfie cannot own the photograph’s copyright, a federal judge said this week.

本周（1月3日至9日），美国一位联邦法官称，因大笑自拍在网上走红的一只印尼猴子不拥有照片的版权。

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals had argued in United States District Court in San Francisco that the rights to the photograph, which was snapped using a photographer’s unattended camera, rightfully belonged to the monkey, a crested macaque.

善待动物组织(Ethical Treatment of Animals)在旧金山的美国地方法院为这只黑冠猕猴争取照片所有权。照片是这只猴子用摄影师故意放在那里的相机自拍的。

In a tentative opinion on Wednesday, Judge William H. Orrick disagreed.

周三（1月6日），威廉·H·奥里克法官(William H. Orrick)在一份初步意见书上对他们的主张表示反对。

“While Congress and the president can extend the protection of law to animals as well as humans,” he wrote, “there is no indication that they did so in the copyright act.”

他写道：“虽然国会和总统可以把法律保护的范围扩展到不同人群甚至动物身上，但是在版权方面他们没有这样做过。”

The images were taken during a trip by the British photographer, David Slater, to the Tangkoko Reserve on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in 2011. He put his camera on a tripod amid a troop of macaques, setting it so it would automatically focus and wind, and waited for the animals to get curious.

那些照片是英国摄影师大卫·斯莱特(David Slater)2011年在印度尼西亚苏拉威岛的Tangkoko保护区(Tangkoko Reserve)拍摄的。他把相机放在三脚架上，设为自动对焦，置于一群猕猴中间，等待它们产生好奇心。

The results included the charming mug of the monkey, identified by PETA as a 6-year-old male, Naruto, grinning broadly and bucktoothed into the lens.

拍出的照片包括这只猴子迷人的笑脸。善待动物组织认出他是一只6岁大的公猴，绰号火影忍者(Naruto)。他对着镜头大笑，露出门牙。

Mr. Slater published a book, “Wildlife Personalities,” that included the pictures, and the images were widely shared online, including without permission by Wikipedia. When Mr. Slater asked the crowd-sourced website to remove the image, it refused under much the same rationale as PETA: Mr. Slater didn’t press the shutter release, so the image was not his.

斯莱特出了一本名为《野生动物的个性》(Wildlife Personalities)的书，收录了这些照片。这些照片在网上广为流传，维基百科(Wikipedia)也未经授权用了照片。斯莱特要求这家由众人编辑的网站撤掉这张照片，该网站以与善待动物组织相似的理由拒绝了他：照片不是斯莱特拍的，所以不归他所有。

In September, PETA filed its lawsuit against Mr. Slater, his company, and Blurb, the company that published his book, asking the judge to allow it to represent Naruto and distribute the image’s proceeds for the benefit of the Indonesian reserve’s crested macaques, a critically endangered species.

去年9月，善待动物组织起诉斯莱特以及他的公司及其出版商Blurb，要求法官允许该组织代表火影忍者将照片的收益用于保护印度尼西亚保护区的严重濒危物种黑冠猕猴。

The photographer’s lawyers asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that a monkey lacks legal standing. Its motion, at times, struck a mocking tone.

这位摄影师的律师们请求法官撤回起诉，理由是猴子没有法律地位。这份动议书不时带有揶揄口吻。

“A monkey, an animal-rights organization and a primatologist walk into federal court to sue for infringement of the monkey’s claimed copyright. What seems like the setup for a punch line is really happening.”

“一只猴子、一个动物权利保护组织和一位灵长类动物学家走进联邦法院，起诉这只猴子所谓的版权遭到侵犯。这听起来像是一则笑话的开头，没想到还真发生了。”

Judge Orrick explained from the bench on Wednesday that he had no authority to extend such rights to animals.

周三（1月6日），奥里克法官在法庭上解释说，他无权将这样的权利赋予动物。

“This is an issue for Congress and the president,” he said, according to Ars Technica. “If they think animals should have the right of copyright, they’re free, I think, under the Constitution, to do that.”

据Ars Technica网站称，奥里克法官说：“这是国会和总统的事。如果他们认为动物应该拥有版权，那么我觉得按照宪法，他们有权这样做。”

Last July, another legal effort to reinterpret the rights of other primates failed to persuade a judge. The Nonhuman Rights Project argued in a State Supreme Court in Manhattan that two apes being held by a university for research were “legal persons,” highly intelligent and self-aware, and should be removed to a sanctuary. The judge took the case seriously, but ultimately decided that under the law, Hercules and Leo were property, not people.

去年7月，另一次重新阐释其他灵长类动物权利的法律行动也没有赢得法官的支持。非人类权利计划(Nonhuman Rights Project)在曼哈顿的州最高法院要求释放一所大学拘禁的两只用作研究的类人猿，称它们是“法人”，具有很高的智商和自我意识，应该被送往保护区。那位法官认真对待这一案件，但是最终判定，依照法律，赫尔克里士(Hercules)和利奥(Leo)是财产，不是人。

Despite PETA’s setback this week, the group cast its unorthodox legal battle as a crucial step toward enlarging the rights of animals.

尽管本周善待动物组织遇到了挫折，但是该组织认为自己的非正统法律诉讼是扩大动物权利的重要一步。

“We will continue to fight for Naruto and his fellow macaques,” Jeff Kerr, an attorney for PETA, said in a statement, adding “As my legal mentor used to say, ‘In social-cause cases, historically, you lose, you lose, you lose, and then you win.’”

善待动物组织的律师杰夫·克尔(Jeff Kerr)在声明中说：“我们将继续为火影忍者和他的同伴争取权利。”他还说，“就像我的法律导师过去常说的，‘从历史角度看，社会事业方面的案子，总是败诉、败诉、败诉，坚持到最后就是胜利。’”