Updated The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has affirmed a lower court ruling that content created by an AI model without human input cannot be copyrighted.
The plaintiff in this case is computer scientist Stephen Thaler, who developed a machine-learning system called the Creativity Machine that produced an image titled, A Recent Entrance to Paradise. Here it is in all its machine-generated glory...
In 2018, on behalf of his AI system, Thaler asked the US Copyright Office to issue a copyright for the artwork. That application was rejected. The egghead asked the agency to reconsider that decision in 2019 and again in 2020.
Both times, the Copyright Office refused, using the following reasoning:
We cannot register this work because it lacks the human authorship necessary to support a copyright claim. According to your application this work was 'created autonomously by machine.'In 2022, Thaler took the matter to court, filing a complaint [PDF] against the US Copyright Office and its director Shira Perlmutter.
Thaler argued that the Copyright Office could not distinguish between human-created and machine-made work, alleging that applicants may already have been granted copyrights for AI-generated work by misrepresenting the author as a person.
His complaint also invoked top computer scientist Alan Turing's test of whether humans and machines can be differentiated during interrogation.
"The real question is whether a machine can make something indistinguishable from a person for purposes of copyright protection," the complaint argued. "The answer, as an undisputed factual matter here, is yes."
The US District Court for the District of Columbia was not much impressed by any of that and sided with the Copyright Office because the law and past precedent makes the case fairly straightforward.
Judge Beryl Howell in a memorandum opinion [PDF] granted the US Copyright Office's motion for summary judgment, noting that copyrighted works require an author and only human authors have been recognized under US law. By listing AI as the author instead of himself, Thaler gave the Copyright Office all that it needed to reject the application.
In November 2023, Thaler appealed to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which has now upheld the decision of the District Court.
"We affirm the denial of Dr Thaler's copyright application," the appellate decision [PDF] states. "The Creativity Machine cannot be the recognized author of a copyrighted work because the Copyright Act of 1976 requires all eligible work to be authored in the first instance by a human being."
The Court of Appeals did, however, acknowledge that works made by a person with the assistance of AI can qualify for copyright, while also noting that no legal standard defines the amount of human participation necessary for such recognition.
"Those line-drawing disagreements over how much artificial intelligence contributed to a particular human author's work are neither here nor there in this case," the appellate decision states. "That is because Dr Thaler listed the Creativity Machine as the sole author of the work before us, and it is undeniably a machine, not a human being."
We asked Dr Thaler if he has any comment to share on the decision, and he referred us to his attorney; we'll let you know if we hear back on that front.
Updated to add at 2100 UTC, March 19
Dr Thaler's attorney Ryan Abbott told us they hope to fight the appeal court decision:
We strongly disagree with the Court of Appeals opinion. The Copyright Office has engaged in extra-statutory policy making by completely prohibiting protection of works made using AI without a traditional human author, and the opinion today allows this regime to continue in violation of both the purpose and text of the Copyright Act. We intend to appeal.
1. 'Authors' like Thaler will flood the media with his complaints and legal disputes.
2. More 'Authors' and 'Artists' will be inspired by Thaler to raise the head and claim to get copyright of 'their' AI works.
3. Protests.
4. Something horrible happens to someone whose 'right' to own the © of his AI-made work, was denied. It invokes massive attention.
5. Massive Protests.
6. Movement shall appear, with a name ended in 'ism'.
7. An imaginary counter-movement will be demonized, whose name also ends in 'ism' but starts in 'anti'.
8. Cancel culture for anti[what-ever]isms.
9. The first human jury appraisal in favor of owning © of AI-made work, will occur. This, trying to look like not anti[what-ever]ism.
5 tears form now, max.