Supreme Court Won't Review AI Art Copyright
The US Supreme Court declined to reconsider the rule that AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted. The decision confirms that full copyright protection is reserved for works with human authorship, settling a major debate in the creative community. This ruling has significant implications for artists, galleries, and collectors navigating the intersection of technology and traditional art markets.
The legal battle was initiated by Stephen Thaler, a computer scientist who sought to register a copyright for an image titled "A Recent Entrance to Paradise." Thaler listed the "author" of the work as his AI system, the "Creativity Machine," which he claimed generated the image autonomously. Thaler has also been at the center of efforts to have an AI named as an inventor on patents. His AI system, DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience), has been credited with conceiving a food container and a flashing beacon. These patent applications, listing DABUS as the inventor, have been filed in numerous countries with varying degrees of success. The U.S. Copyright Office first rejected Thaler's application in 2019, a decision that was upheld through internal appeals. The core of the issue is the long-held legal principle that copyright protection is reserved for works created by humans. The district court, and subsequently the court of appeals, affirmed this stance, citing the Copyright Act of 1976. The U.S. Copyright Office has issued guidance clarifying that while AI can be used as a tool in the creative process, works generated entirely by AI are not copyrightable. Applicants must disclose the inclusion of AI-generated content in their registration applications. For a work to be eligible for copyright, there must be substantial human involvement and creative contribution. This stance is not universal. In late 2023, a court in Beijing, China, recognized copyright in an AI-generated image. This highlights the global divergence in how legal systems are approaching the intellectual property questions raised by generative AI. The debate over AI and copyright extends to the use of copyrighted materials for training AI models. Numerous lawsuits have been filed by artists and authors who allege that their work has been used without permission to train generative AI systems. These cases are ongoing and raise complex questions about fair use in the age of AI.
