Copyright Protection To AI-Generated Works Is Rejected By United States Federal District Court for the District of Columbia

Dr. Stephen Thaler sued the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) for denying his application for a work created solely with generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Judge Beryl Howell gave a ruling in the case. The opinion confirms the USCO's decision to refuse to register a work in which the claimant stated in the application that The Creativity Machine, an AI system, produced the image.

Judge Howell states, "Human authorship is a bedrock copyright requirement." The court immediately says that none of the additional information Thaler claims to have provided in support of "his development, use, ownership, and prompting of the AI-generating software" is present in the administrative record. As a result, the court must disregard Thaler's attempts to advance "various legal theories" that sidestep the question of whether copyright law recognises non-human creation.

Dr. Ryan Abbott expressed his disagreement with the District Court's decision in a written statement. "The general public is the primary beneficiary of copyright law, and the general public benefits when systems are in place to promote the generation and dissemination of new works, regardless of how they are created."

The Copyright Office supported the preliminary judgement.?

Abbott is a part of the team defending Thaler in several legal proceedings that try to overturn intellectual property restrictions on human authorship worldwide.

The decision was made just over a year after the first complaint against the USCO was submitted to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., in response to three different letter opinions that the USCO's Review Board had previously issued. Shira Perlmutter was also mentioned in the complaint in her official capacities as Director of the USCO and Register of Copyrights. Thaler first asserted that the image in question, known as "A Recent Entrance to Paradise," was the product of a sentient machine, also known as the point of singularity.