Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in an Artificial Intelligence (AI)/copyright case. Thaler v. Perlmutter. You can read the court of appeals decision here.
A Missouri artist had applied for a copyright registration for visual art he created through the use of AI technology. The U.S. Copyright Office rejected his application because the work was not created by “human authorship” as required to register a copyright. He sued, and both the district court and court of appeals upheld the Copyright Office’s denial of his application. He then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear his appeal, meaning that the Copyright Office’s rejection of his application for a copyright for the AI work stands.
This wasn’t the first time the Copyright Office rejected registration applications by artists for work generated by AI based on the lack of “human authorship” in the work. This case had been followed by artists, musicians, photographers, and other creators who have used AI in their creative works and were hoping for a different outcome in court. For now, at least, work created by AI is not copyright eligible.