I'd bet that that idea has already been tested in the courts. I believe that the result is that the guardians of the child hold the rights in trust. A child is still human though, and courts do not yet assign (to my knowledge) property rights to non-human animals.
Which muddies that particular example, but the spirit of the example is unaddressed. For example, if a human adult with no understanding of what a camera is or what the act of taking a picture entails[1] took the picture by accident, would they not deserve the rights?
>>However, I imagine you meant that if a camera were dropped among these people, would they have the rights to the photos they took? Tricky... but I guess yes, according to the law... (I am not a lawyer).
This was the point I was trying to make, animal or no, that matters, but I don't think intent does.
Intent certainly matters in the domain of intellectual property law.
For example, imagine that I were to instruct someone to make a device for me, and they made it exactly according to my design, and it performed some novel function that I had predicted it would. Under current law, I would be the inventor, not the person who constructed the device. This is since the "inventive step" was performed by myself. I'm not however sure how this relates to copyright (the issue at hand in the OP)...
There are many situations where the courts will provide "protection" to people who are not perceived to be capable of exercising their rights in the usual manner. Such cases are often referred to as "wards of the court", and include not only children but also adults with diminished capabilities to understand court proceedings.
I imagine that people from uncontacted tribes would fall into the same category, due to their lack of experience with the courts. in practice, though, I also imagine that the courts would not be very interested in any appeals they make...
In any case, none of the above applies to monkeys.
