I read the monkey story. I will go back and have a look now that it seems there was a verdict. If I recall correctly the issue there was that the image was argued to in be public domain, copyright couldn’t go to the monkey and the photographer arguably didn’t take it.Sigh ... I've been online long enough I know how this is going to go and I'm not going to play that game. Nothing I show or tell you will change your opinion. I'm only going to say this. In the US, absent an agreement otherwise; whoever presses the shutter release button is the owner and copyright holder. <<-- see that period there? Period.
You wanna go bananas with a crazy scenario? Guy goes out in the jungle and sets his camera down. A monkey comes over and actually takes a selfie of himself. Guess what? Ended up in court. And ONLY the fact that it was a monkey and not a human is what kept the copyright from going to the monkey. Yes, had to be debated in court becuse there IS case law - a LOT of it that says, "whoever pressed the button, created the photo and therefore is the owner and copyright holder, but apparently you didn't bother to simply Google: "who owns the copyright to a photo" and add "shutter release" so you can see why it's pointless to continue.
Have a great day!
Opinions don’t matter here- it’s the facts that are important. Yes, I understand copyright will automatically belong to the original photographer (convenient to say the person who fired the shutter, set the intervalometer, motion trigger whatever) absent other contractual agreements that may assign rights elsewhere.
I am taking specifically about the examples you provided. Specifically the drone one which I’m saying would be very unlikely to present in reality for the reasons i provided.
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