Comment by dredmorbius

Under US copyright law, copyright protection subsists "in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression":

<https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/102>.

It's not that corporations can't hold copyright. But a corporation cannot mechanically create "original works of authorship" by a purely mechanical process. That process is limited to human authors. "Works for hire" would be a common case of a human creator (author) resulting in a corporate assignment (ownership), see: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire>.

Notably cases:

- The "monkey selfie" copyright case, in which photographer David Slater arranged for monkeys to take selfies. Copyright ownership denied by both the US Copyright Office (against Slater's claim) and (in a separate case arguing the monkey should hold copyright) by an appellate court: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...>, Naruto v. Slater, No. 16‑CV‑00063 (N.D. Cal. 2016).

- Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991). Simple compilations are not copyrightable regardless of whether created by humans.

- THALER v. PERLMUTTER (2023). "[T]his case presents only the question of whether a work generated autonomously by a computer system is eligible for copyright. In the absence of any human involvement in the creation of the work, the clear and straightforward answer is the one given by the Register: No." <https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-dis-crt-dis-col/1149169...>.