The start and finish of human rights, and . . . copyright

From my post “Human rights and the start and end points of humanity”: 

I have a project where I am looking at the question “when did human rights begin?”, given that humans have not always existed. It's a project that will have to wait until I retire (if I can one day actually get to retire), but, to cheat a little, I suspect that what it is going to reveal is: 

• the rights described as “human”, just as the rights that are described as “animal”, have always existed; 
• the problem is that we have often lacked the awareness that such is so, and have then struggled to develop the means to communicate that reality in an effective manner.

. . . 

That covers the start of humans/humanity/the human species . . . what about when we evolve into something else? 

Well, again, in my opinion the principles that are described as certain rights would continue to exist and be applicable to the new species. It would get messy during the transition, as both species would have rights and the desire to know they will not be treated or thought of lesser than the other - and the way to do that is to live by the principles of what I will now start referring to as “sentient being rights”. 

To some extent we're practising for that now, in how we manage the issues associated with machine learning (aka “artificial intelligence”). The focus at the moment is - quite rightly, in my opinion - on protecting human rights, as those using or advocating for the technology are too inclined to be lacking in life experience and the awareness of other beings that life experience brings, as well as motivated towards being salespeople for personal reasons (wealth, kudos, etc).

I’ve now just come across a video discussing the legal aspects of NFTs which includes a discussion on copyright. The discussion states that (at around 18:50; you can view the relevant section of the video - from a little earlier, to set the context - at https://youtu.be/C6aeL83z_9Y?t=1074, but the rest of the video is interesting and useful as well - just keep in mind it is based solely on US law, so I don't know if it applies elsewhere, or to what extent if there are similarities in other jurisdictions) that only humans can own copyright.

Without going into the details of the court’s decision, this raises a whole new aspect to the topic I was examining: 

when humans evolve into a different species, what would be involved in deciding that the new species can have copyright, and how would possibly competing copyright claims be resolved? 

Having sorted that, what level of sentience or other attribute would be required for us to recognise that other species - who are also evolving, just as we are - have, or at some future date have come into, the right to hold copyright? 

This, fairly obviously, is a sub-section of my previous enquiry into start and end points of rights (and what we should term them anyway), but it is a specific and thus possibly quite useful test. 

It also raises the issue of malice / bad faith. It seems to me that many copyright cases are initiated on the basis that someone else has necessarily stolen the other’s idea - or, at the very least, that there is an aspect of bad faith or malice involved, whereas the TRUTH is that people can independently have identical or closely similar thoughts, and do so all the time.

Is there room for court cases on copyright to reach such determinations?

(I have a vague recollection that the potential exists, but is so rare as to be of little import.)