US Judge: Art Created Solely by Artificial Intelligence Cannot be Copyrighted

upstart writes:

"US copyright law protects only works of human creation," judge writes:

Art generated entirely by artificial intelligence cannot be copyrighted because "human authorship is an essential part of a valid copyright claim," a federal judge ruled on Friday.

The US Copyright Office previously rejected plaintiff Stephen Thaler's application for a copyright because the work lacked human authorship, and he challenged the decision in US District Court for the District of Columbia. Thaler and the Copyright Office both moved for summary judgment in motions that "present the sole issue of whether a work generated entirely by an artificial system absent human involvement should be eligible for copyright," Judge Beryl Howell's memorandum opinion issued Friday noted.

Howell denied Thaler's motion for summary judgment, granted the Copyright Office's motion, and ordered that the case be closed.

Thaler sought a copyright for an image titled, "A Recent Entrance to Paradise," which was produced by a computer program that he developed, the ruling said. In his application for a copyright, he identified the author as the Creativity Machine, the name of his software.

Thaler's application "explained the work had been 'autonomously created by a computer algorithm running on a machine,' but that plaintiff sought to claim the copyright of the 'computer-generated work' himself 'as a work-for-hire to the owner of the Creativity Machine,'" Howell wrote. "The Copyright Office denied the application on the basis that the work 'lack[ed] the human authorship necessary to support a copyright claim,' noting that copyright law only extends to works created by human beings."

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