Summary
The United States Court of Appeals upheld the Copyright Office’s denial of copyright for an AI-generated artwork, reaffirming that human authorship is fundamental under the US Copyright Act of 1976. The judgment in Thaler v. Perlmutter underscores that machines, including AI, are viewed as tools, not legal authors. The Court clarified that legislative changes would be necessary to accommodate non-human authorship.
Introduction
The United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit recently affirmed the US Copyright Office’s denial of an AI-authored work titled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise”. This opinion deals with the question of whether a non-human machine can be an author under the Copyright Act of 1976.
This opinion is timely and influential, due to its implications on intellectual property rights, innovation and possible economic impact.
Facts
The appellant, Dr. Stephen Thaler (“Dr. Thaler”) is a computer scientist who creates and works with artificial intelligence systems. He invented the Creativity Machine and listed it as the sole author of an artwork titled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise” (“Subject Work”) in an application filed before the appellee, the US Copyright Office.
Application: The Copyright Office denied the registration of copyright in the Subject Work owing to the reason that “a human being did not create the work”.
Fig. Subject Work titled ‘A Recent Entrance to Paradise’
Reconsideration: Seeking reconsideration of his application, Dr. Thaler made the following constitutional, statutory, and policy arguments:
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- Lack of traditional human authorship: The subject work was autonomously generated by an AI.
- Constitutionality: The Human Authorship requirement is unconstitutional and unsupported by either statute or case law.
- Opinions of Gilded Age: Judicial opinions from the Gilded Age cannot settle the question of whether computer generated works are copyrightable today.
- Work for hire: Dr. Thaler should own the copyright under the work-made-for-hire doctrine because “non-human, artificial persons such as companies can already be authors, under this doctrine.”
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The review board, during the process of reconsideration, again denied Dr. Thaler’s application because the work lacked “sufficient creative input or intervention from a human author”.
The case was then moved before the US District Court for the District of Columbia, for review. Here, Dr. Thaler made an additional claim that the work is copyrightable because a human – Dr. Thaler – provided instructions and directed his AI.
Affirming the Copyright Office’s denial of registration, the District Court held that “human authorship is a bedrock requirement of copyright”. The work for hire argument was rejected since it presupposes the existence of a copyright and related interest to be claimed. The District Court further held that the Subject Work being autonomously generated by Creativity Machine is not eligible for copyright to begin with.
Analysis of Present Decision
On the present appeal, the US Court of Appeals, considered the meaning and definition of “author” in great detail since the term “author” is not defined under the US Copyright Act, 1976 (“the Act”). Rather, it is a matter of statutory interpretation.
The Court of Appeals extrapolated the following seven-fold legal precepts and provisions under the Act which require an author to be human being.
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- Legal capacity to own property: An entity that cannot own property cannot be an author under the statute.
- Duration of copyright protection depends on approximate human lifespan, i.e the lifetime of the author.
- Inheritance of rights: When an author dies, that person’s intellectual property right inheres in his/her successors.
- Capacity to sign: Copyright transfers require a signature, which machines cannot provide.
- Nationality / Domicile: Authors of unpublished works are protected regardless of the author’s “nationality or domicile.”
- Authors possess intention.
- Tools vs. Authors: Every time the Act discusses machines, the context indicates that machines are tools, not authors.
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All of the above qualities of an author were found lacking in artificially intelligent systems. The Court of Appeals examined how the meaning of “author” under Copyright law had evolved, and firmly held that computers are viewed as tools used by humans to create copyrightable works.
Further, the Court rejected Dr. Thaler’s assumptions that adhering to the human-authorship requirement would impede the protection of works made with artificial intelligence. It observed that the Copyright Office had allowed the registration of works made by human authors who use artificial intelligence, as long a human contribution was demonstrated and a human being was named as the author. This standard was not examined further as Dr. Thaler had not named any human as an author.
The incentivization of creative works argument was rejected by the Court, because machines do not respond to economic incentives the way humans do.
Dr. Thaler’s policy arguments were dismissed on the grounds that they pertain to Congress’s exclusive authority to enact laws. The Court stated that, unless Congress amended the Act to expressly include authorship by computers, the Courts could not legally recognize AI authorship.
Further, the Court did not address broader constitutional questions such as the Constitutional requirement for human authorship, because statutory interpretation of the Copyright Act was sufficient to decide the case.
Dr. Thaler also made alternative arguments which were rejected by the Court. First, he argued that the made-for-hire provision allowed him to be considered the author because the Creativity Machine was his employee. This did not fulfill the authorship requirements discussed above. Second, he argued that he is the work’s author because he made and used the Creativity Machine. The district court held that Dr. Thaler waived any such argument before the Copyright Office, which he did not challenge.
Based on the above analysis, the US Court of Appeals held that human authorship was a requirement for copyright protection, and affirmed the District Court’s denial of Dr. Thaler’s copyright application.
Citation: STEPHEN THALER v. SHIRA PERLMUTTER & Anr., United States Court of Appeals, for the District of Columbia Circuit, decided on March 18, 2025. Available at https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/thaler-v-perlmutter-dc-circuit-opinion.pdf .
Authored by Charishma (Advocate) and Ashwini Arun (CA Attorney).
Accessibility review by Kavya Sadashivan (Advocate)
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