A recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has reaffirmed that artificial intelligence (AI) systems cannot be considered authors under U.S. copyright law. The case involved computer scientist Stephen Thaler, who sought to register a copyright for an image created solely by his AI system, the “Creativity Machine.” The court’s decision, issued on March 18, 2025, upheld previous rulings by the U.S. Copyright Office and a federal district court, both of which denied Thaler’s application on the basis that copyright law requires a human author.
Thaler applied for a copyright in 2018 for a piece of visual art titled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise,” which he claimed was generated independently by his AI system. The U.S. Copyright Office rejected his application in 2022, stating that creative works must have human authorship to be eligible for copyright protection. Thaler then filed a lawsuit challenging this decision, but in 2023, a federal district court in Washington, D.C., ruled against him, affirming that human authorship is a “bedrock requirement of copyright.” The appeals court has now upheld that ruling.
In the decision written by Judge Patricia Millett, the D.C. Circuit Court stated that “the Creativity Machine cannot be the recognized author of a copyrighted work because the Copyright Act of 1976 requires all eligible work to be authored in the first instance by a human being.” The court emphasized that multiple provisions of the Copyright Act, including those related to ownership, duration, and transfer of copyrights, presuppose human authorship. The ruling also noted that the Copyright Office has long interpreted the law to require human creation, a stance consistent with historical understandings of authorship.
The ruling does not mean that AI-assisted works are entirely ineligible for copyright protection. The court clarified that a work may still be copyrighted if it is authored by a human who uses AI as a tool in the creative process. However, it drew a firm line against granting copyrights to works created solely by an autonomous AI system. Judge Millett stated, “The rule requires only that the author of that work be a human being—the person who created, operated, or used artificial intelligence—and not the machine itself.”
This decision aligns with other recent actions by the Copyright Office, which has similarly rejected copyright claims for AI-generated works, including images created using the AI platform Midjourney. The ruling highlights ongoing legal challenges as AI-generated content becomes more prevalent and raises questions about the future of copyright law in an era of increasing automation and machine learning capabilities.
Additional Reading
Art generated solely by AI can’t be copyrighted, federal appeals court says, ABA Journal (March 19, 2025)
US appeals court rejects copyrights for AI-generated art lacking ‘human’ creator, Reuters (March 18, 2025)
Thaler v. Perlmutter (D.C. Cir. 2025)
Image Credit: Lemberg Vector studio / Shutterstock.com
