Case Digest on Thaler v. Perlmutter

Art generated by artificial intelligence cannot be copyrighted.

This ruling relative to the prevalence of applications powered by artificial intelligence nowadays has been held in the case of Thaler v. Perlmutter decided in August 2023. Check out this one-minute case digest by Audio Law Reader.🎧📚

FACTS OF THE CASE:

Plaintiff Stephen Thaler owns an AI system known as the "Creativity Machine," capable of autonomously generating original visual art. When he sought copyright registration for a piece of art created by this AI, the Copyright Office denied it due to the absence of human authorship, in accordance with longstanding copyright principles.

Thaler challenged this denial in court, arguing that AI-generated works should be eligible for copyright, even if humans were not directly involved in their creation.

ISSUE OF THE CASE:

Whether a work of art generated by an artificial intelligence system is eligible for copyright protection under United States copyright law

RULING OF THE CASE:

No, a work of art generated entirely by an artificial intelligence system, without any direct involvement of a human author, is not eligible for copyright protection under United States copyright law. The court ruled that copyright law necessitates human authorship as a foundational requirement for protection. It concluded that since there was no direct human involvement in the creative process of generating the artwork in question, it did not meet the criteria for copyright protection. Consequently, the plaintiff's application for copyright registration was rejected, and the defendants' motion for summary judgment was upheld, affirming the denial of copyright for the AI-generated work.

IMPACT TO THE LEGAL SYSTEM:

This case reaffirms the longstanding principle that human authorship is a fundamental requirement for copyright.