• A Federal Judge ruled that artwork generated purely by Artificial Intelligence (AI) cannot be copyrighted
• This ruling is in response to Stephen Thaler’s 2018 copyright application for an AI-generated artwork
• The U.S. Copyright Office denied the application because it lacked human authorship
Ruling on Copyright of Art Generated by AI
A federal judge recently ruled that art and media generated purely by Artificial Intelligence (AI) are not eligible for copyright protection. This ruling comes in response to a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Copyright Office and its top official, Shira Perlmutter, in 2022 by Stephen Thaler who attempted to register a piece of AI-generated artwork with the U.S. Copyright Office in 2018 but was denied due to lack of human authorship.
Background: Stephen Thaler’s Lawsuit
Stephen Thaler attempted to register a piece of AI-generated artwork with the U.S. Copyright Office in 2018 but was denied due to lack of human authorship, which led him to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Copyright Office and its top official, Shira Perlmutter, in 2022 arguing that he was the author of the computer system that generated the artwork and thus should get copyright over its output transferred to him accordingly.
Court Ruling
The court ruling found that the Copyright Office “did not err in denying th[e] application” as copyright only applies to works created by a human author – something which this particular piece of art does not qualify as according to this judgement.
Implications
This ruling has important implications for how we understand art created any form of technology or automation going forward – namely, that these works will not be eligible for copyright protection unless they can show evidence of some kind of substantial human involvement or input beyond just setting up a machine or algorithm programmatically and letting it run without further direction or influence from humans thereafter..
Conclusion
In conclusion, while this specific case may have been decided against Stephen Thaler, it serves as an important precedent regarding what types of works are eligible for copyright protection moving forward into an increasingly tech-driven world where more and more art is being created with help from machines or algorithms instead traditional methods involving solely humans creators