But in this case the monkey was also the director. If David Slater had been intending or worked towards what ended up happening in some way I'd be a lot more sympathetic to his copyright claims, but as it is he didn't have any agency in creation of the photograph except in owning the camera and failing to secure it.
And I would argue that even if David Slater didn't fully intend for the monkey to take the photo, he had more intention or expectation for that happening than the monkey had for taking a photo. The monkey was only interested in the sound made by the camera, not in directing a photo shoot.
Well, it might be that the monkey wouldn't deserve copyright even if copyright could reside in a monkey. There are broad classes of works like phone books which don't get copyright at all:
> "But in this case the monkey was also the director."
The ape didn't really have any intent to direct. It was simply playing with an amusing object. I wonder what the situation would be like if this was a case of contact with an otherwise disconnected Amazon tribe. Would that individual have copyright? Would they even understand what that means? If they don't and their face ends up all over the internet as 'public domain' would they have any say about that? (I have no answers here, just idle thoughts).
> "... he didn't have any agency in creation of the photograph except in owning the camera and failing to secure it."
Once the ape took the camera and began taking pictures, Slater was astute enough not to get in the way. Thereby allowing the ape to take "hundreds of selfies". Despite that fact that "at first it scared the rest of them away but they soon came back" -- Overall, I don't think this is at all clear cut about who owns the copyright but deciding without due process seems wrong (the court of public opinion is rarely the correct place).
