Regardless of what one feels about photo copyright or about (nonhuman) animal (legal) personhood, the "monkey selfie <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie>" trial is absurd. The trivial counterexamples abound:
1. If a photographer sets up a camera so the sun's rays automatically trigger a photo of the sun, is it the sun's copyright? 2. Is it different if the "sun's" photo is of a tree? or of a monkey? 3. Is it different if the photo is triggered by acoustic triggers from thunder? or from someone's footsteps? 4. Is it different if it's time-lapse photography triggered by touch from the growth of a plant? 5. What has "selfie" to do with it? Doesn't it apply to any remote-triggered image *by* anyone or anything, *of*anything or anyone? 6. If the monkey deliberately triggered a photo to get a food-pellet would that be different from deliberately triggering it for a look at the photo? of self? of other? of a tree? of a file-photo? of a mirror? 7. Does it make any difference if it's a monkey (who does not recognize self in mirror or photo) or an ape (who does)? or an infant? 8. Or monkeys typing Shakespeare?
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