>It should be about who got the camera there and set it up, not who pushed the button. With automated recording (dashcams), there isn't even "a button".

I'm actually having a bit of trouble thinking of what sufficient societal good there is/would be in granting copyright on raw dashcam or security camera or the like footage? None of those purely mechanical automated systems need a subsidy or encouragement to generate more. Certainly someone can use that sort of thing in the creation of a copyrighted work but what would be the issue with the underlying material in that case being unprotected?

What if it was a human who took the photo, would the copyright still be owned by the equipment owner / person who set it up?

What if this applied in a photography class? The instructor owns the equipment and helped “set up” the photo. Does the instructor own the copyright?

I think the issue you then run into is imagine another human came, picked up the camera, and used it to take a picture of whatever. It'd be fairly self evident that that the photographer would own the copyright to that work, but in your take - it'd be the camera owner.

So you're more of trying to create a special rule where if the normal recipient of a copyright would be invalid, then it slides to the 'nearest' most appropriate individual, but that seems extremely fragile and difficult to define.

Dashcams and security footage definitely don’t have copyright protection. Are you seriously thinking that the construction worker who set up the camera would then have copyright over everything it records?