This very issue came up in 2014 in relation to a selfie taken by a monkey that became popular on the internet: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_cop

This very issue came up in 2014 in relation to a selfie taken by a monkey that became popular on the internet: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disp... The US copyright office wrote: "Only works created by a human can be copyrighted under United States law, which excludes photographs and artwork created by animals or by machines without human intervention" and that "Because copyright law is limited to 'original intellectual conceptions of the author,' the [copyright] office will refuse to register a claim if it determines that a human being did not create the work. The Office will not register works produced by nature, animals, or plants."