“Star Trek: The Next Generation” fans will recall Lieutenant Commander Data, a charming android (a “Soong-Type Synthetic intelligence Android-lifeform”) who longed to experience the human emotions he was denied as a robot. Data’s artistic and lyrical creations provided “it” with a semblance of humanity. But if Data were to submit its works to the U.S. Copyright Office today for registration, it would sadly discover that privilege is reserved solely to human beings as authors.

The need for human authorship was highlighted in a well-publicized 2018 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which denied copyright “author” status to a grinning macaque, who took selfies of himself using a photographer’s digital camera, because animals lack standing under the Copyright Act. NARUTO, a Crested Macaque, by and through his Next Friends, People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals v. Slater, 888 F.3d 418 (9th Cir. 2018).