Ah, yes, I should have thought of that. I've actually referenced it in other discussions like this one. Sorry about the confusion.

That case does show how minimal the human involvement needs to be before a human can claim to be the "author", if the photographer had intentionally allowed the monkey to take the camera then he could probably have claimed copyright over those photos. As I recall the case ended up hinging on the fact that he hadn't wanted the monkey to steal the camera, so none of the photos that it took with them were a result of a decision that he had made.

PETA's monkey selfie case was a separate one where they tried to argue that the monkey should be the copyright holder, and I think that one's most closely analogous to Thaler's case here. Both were doomed because neither monkeys nor AIs are legal persons.