[GOAL] Selfie-evident nonsense about copyright

[Stevan Harnad]

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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