[dlcarrier]

In effect, yes.

It took a supreme court case to declare that photography includes some amount of artistic expression, without which it wouldn't be eligible for copyright: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrow-Giles_Lithographic_Co._...

At the time it was debatable whether or not photographs were really art, because the photographer need do nothing more than release the shutter. There was probably some protectionism involved, as photography put a lot of portrait artists out of work.