We are talking about aspects of a human-created and arbitrated legal system. All these rules and such are essentially designed to revolve around how we treat and compensate each other.
Monkeys have no concept or participation in this legal system in the same way you wouldn't find two dogs arguing about how to handle a human sniffing their asses and who is the "dominant" one in that case.
We as a society have decided to give certain protections and recognitions to humans who are too young and/or too mentally disabled to participate in this system at the "full" level. Presumably we have decided this because we choose to recognize all humans as equal and applicable to receive a certain level of inalienable rights.
Most of our laws that relate to non-humans (animals) treat them as a form of property or otherwise seem to indicate we have no explicit desire to grant them the same rights and protections as actual humans. This could change with legal precedent, but the general consensus (IMO) is not on the side of wikipedias arbitrary ruling.
I agree with you that Wikipedia's decision is arbitrary, self-serving, and more than a little silly. But it raises interesting questions about the personhood of animals with higher intelligence. I don't think we could be having this conversation, for instance, if a cat took the photo.
And yes, all of our laws are human constructs. The question is whether we start including human-like animals under the protections and rubric of some of those laws. I don't necessarily have an answer, but I do think it's a fun intellectual challenge.
[EDIT: It's worth noting that Wikipedia's actual claim isn't so much that the monkey "owns" the photo. It's that the photographer doesn't. In other words, Wikipedia is claiming that, in de facto terms, nobody owns the photo. The monkey is its creator, but because a monkey is not entitled to legal authorship, the photo is public domain.]
What is interesting is asking our court system to consider this question. Small children have as much concept of the legal system as this monkey, yet are still afforded its benefit and if you look at our legal history this was achieved by adults demanding this.
Monkeys have no concept or participation in this legal system in the same way you wouldn't find two dogs arguing about how to handle a human sniffing their asses and who is the "dominant" one in that case.
We as a society have decided to give certain protections and recognitions to humans who are too young and/or too mentally disabled to participate in this system at the "full" level. Presumably we have decided this because we choose to recognize all humans as equal and applicable to receive a certain level of inalienable rights.
Most of our laws that relate to non-humans (animals) treat them as a form of property or otherwise seem to indicate we have no explicit desire to grant them the same rights and protections as actual humans. This could change with legal precedent, but the general consensus (IMO) is not on the side of wikipedias arbitrary ruling.