After the controversy over Wikipedia's free and worldwide distribution of a monkey "selfie" against the wishes of the man who claims to own copyright, the US has issued guidance that says monkeys, ghosts and gods are all banned from possessing image rights.
The US Copyright Office has published a draft update to its rules regarding ownership of creative works such as photographs, text and art - the first changes in more than two decades - which explicitly state that it will only recognise pieces produced by a human.
Among the 1222 pages of updated rules and regulations are explicit bans on works produced by "nature, animals, or plants" or "purportedly created by divine or supernatural beings".
In a list of examples of prohibited applications is "a photograph taken by a monkey" - an apparent nod to the recent Wikipedia case.
Wikimedia, the US-based organisation behind Wikipedia, has refused a photographer's repeated requests to remove one of his images which it uses online without his permission, claiming that because a monkey pressed the shutter button there is no copyright on it.
British nature photographer David Slater was in Indonesia in 2011 attempting to get the perfect image of a crested black macaque when one of the animals came up to investigate his equipment, hijacked a camera and took hundreds of selfies.
Slater has since complained that Wikimedia's distribution of the image is affecting his ability to make a living from his work. He incurred costs of thousands of pounds to arrange the photo shoot, which required the use of his expensive equipment.