Stephen Thaler v. Shira Perlmutter
Not yet reported; 687 F. Supp. 3d 140 (D.D.C. 2023), aff'd, No. 23-5233 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 18, 2025) (2025)
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Rule of Law:
The Copyright Act of 1976 requires a work to be created by a human being to be eligible for copyright protection; therefore, a work generated autonomously by an artificial intelligence system cannot be registered.
Facts:
- Dr. Stephen Thaler, a computer scientist, created a generative artificial intelligence system which he named the 'Creativity Machine.'
- The Creativity Machine autonomously generated a two-dimensional artwork.
- Dr. Thaler titled the artwork 'A Recent Entrance to Paradise.'
- Dr. Thaler submitted a copyright registration application for the artwork to the U.S. Copyright Office.
- On the application, Dr. Thaler listed the 'Creativity Machine' as the work's sole author.
- Dr. Thaler listed himself as the copyright claimant but specified on the application that the work was 'Created autonomously by machine.'
Procedural Posture:
- Dr. Thaler submitted a copyright registration application to the U.S. Copyright Office, listing an AI system as the author.
- The Copyright Office denied the application based on its human-authorship requirement.
- Dr. Thaler’s request for reconsideration by the Registration Program was denied.
- Dr. Thaler's subsequent request for reconsideration by the Copyright Office Review Board was also denied, constituting final agency action.
- Dr. Thaler filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking judicial review of the agency's final decision.
- The District Court granted summary judgment for the Copyright Office, affirming its denial of registration.
- Dr. Thaler, as appellant, appealed the District Court's decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, with the Register of Copyrights as appellee.
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Issue:
Does the Copyright Act of 1976 permit copyright registration for a work that was autonomously generated by an artificial intelligence system without any creative input from a human being?
Opinions:
Majority - Circuit Judge Millett
No. The Copyright Act of 1976 requires all eligible work to be authored in the first instance by a human being. The court's reasoning is based on statutory interpretation, finding that numerous provisions in the Copyright Act presuppose a human author. The Act refers to an author's 'life' and 'death' for copyright duration (§ 302), their 'widow,' 'widower,' 'children,' or 'grandchildren' for inheritance purposes (§ 203), and their 'nationality or domicile' (§ 104), all of which are attributes of humans, not machines. This interpretation is reinforced by the Copyright Office's longstanding human-authorship requirement, which was well-settled when Congress enacted the 1976 Act. While the work-made-for-hire doctrine allows non-human entities like corporations to be 'considered' authors, this presupposes that the work was originally created by a human employee. The court declined to address whether the Constitution itself requires human authorship and found that Dr. Thaler had waived the argument that he was the author by not properly raising it before the agency.
Analysis:
This decision solidifies the human authorship requirement as a fundamental prerequisite for copyright protection in the United States, directly addressing the legal status of works generated entirely by AI. It clarifies that, under current law, such works fall into the public domain upon creation. The ruling places the onus on Congress to amend the Copyright Act if it wishes to extend protection to AI-generated works, distinguishing between AI as an autonomous creator (unprotected) and AI as a tool assisting a human author (potentially protected). This creates a critical line-drawing problem for future cases involving works with varying degrees of human and AI input.
