I don't know if the camera operator set things up in such a way he can be said to have taken the gorilla selfie picture. Maybe he did or didn't. Maybe nobody

I don't know if the camera operator set things up in such a way he can be said to have taken the gorilla selfie picture. Maybe he did or didn't. Maybe nobody knows since it hasn't gone to court and a judge hasn't made up new case law yet and the facts are unique. I'm not clear on what happened, I mentioned it as an anecdote related to a general point about the law. But we can say for sure if the camera owner had not set up the shot and a monkey just grabbed the camera from him and took a selfie, to the camera owner's surprise, the photo would not be copyrightable "The U.S. Copyright Office, since the dispute began, has specifically listed 'a photograph taken by a monkey' as an example of an item that cannot be copyrighted." (That also extends to artworks by elephants.) " https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/12/550417823/-animal-rights-advocates-photographer-compromise-over-ownership-of-monkey-selfie https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/12/550417823...