[soerxpso]

In the case mentioned above where someone just spins around in their chair and takes a random photo on their phone (which they would then own the rights to), did that person really do any 'creative input'? All they did was press a button on a tool, with no further thought. That actually seems like less creative input than when I type a prompt into a tool and hit 'generate'. Why are cameras, image editors, etc, tools in a way that stable diffusion is not?

[Aloisius]

If you can show that no human creative expression was involved in composition, timing, etc, then no, it's not copyrightable.

There's a very good argument for security camera footage not being copyrightable for that very reason. There just hasn't been any case law yet to test it.