Copyright has been revised, overhauled and redefined multiple times over the past few centuries. You couldn't have picked a worse example.
Here's an obvious question that came up (and was resolved differently in different jurisdictions) - can photographs be copyrighted? What about photographs made in public? Of a market street? Of the Eifel tower? Of street art? Can an artist forbid photography of their art? An actor of their performance? A celebrity of their likeness? A private individual of their face? Does the purpose for which the photograph will be used matter?
At what point does a photograph have sufficient creative input to be copyrightable? Is pressing a button on a camera creative input? What about a machine that presses that button? Only humans can create copyrightable works under most jurisdictions. Is arranging the scene to be photographed a creative input? Can I arrange a scene just like yours and take a photo of it? Am I violating your copyright by doing it?
There's tens of thousands of pages of law and legal precedent that answer that question. As a conversation, it went on for decades, with no simple first-version solution sticking.
Here's an obvious question that came up (and was resolved differently in different jurisdictions) - can photographs be copyrighted? What about photographs made in public? Of a market street? Of the Eifel tower? Of street art? Can an artist forbid photography of their art? An actor of their performance? A celebrity of their likeness? A private individual of their face? Does the purpose for which the photograph will be used matter?
At what point does a photograph have sufficient creative input to be copyrightable? Is pressing a button on a camera creative input? What about a machine that presses that button? Only humans can create copyrightable works under most jurisdictions. Is arranging the scene to be photographed a creative input? Can I arrange a scene just like yours and take a photo of it? Am I violating your copyright by doing it?
There's tens of thousands of pages of law and legal precedent that answer that question. As a conversation, it went on for decades, with no simple first-version solution sticking.