Credit: mrmohock/Adobe Stock.
On Aug. 18, 2023, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia affirmed the U.S. Copyright Office’s (Copyright Office or the Office) denial of a copyright application for a visual piece of art generated entirely by an artificial intelligence-driven computer called the “Creativity Machine.” Thaler v. Perlnutter, No. 22-cv-1564, 2023 WL 5333236 (D.D.C. Aug. 18, 2023). Recognizing that U.S. “copyright law protects only works of human creation,” the court determined that the Copyright Office “acted properly in denying copyright registration for a work created absent any human involvement.”
The court’s ruling is consistent with, but did not defer to, or reference, the Office’s March 16, 2023 Copyright Guidance published in the Federal Register entitled “Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence.”(March Guidance). U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress, “Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence,” U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress, “Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence,” Statement of Policy, effective March 16, 2023. For a work to be copyrightable, per the March Guidance, “it must owe its origin to a human being.” Furthermore, the Office “will not register works produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically without any creative input or intervention from a human author.”
