"AI-Generated Art Not Recognized for Copyright, US Court Ruling"

A U.S. federal court has ruled that artworks created solely by artificial intelligence (AI) cannot be protected under copyright law.

[Image source=Getty Images]

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According to major foreign media including The New York Times (NYT) on the 21st (local time), the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled on the 18th that the U.S. Copyright Office's decision to reject copyright registration for AI-created artworks was lawful.

Previously, the U.S. Copyright Office refused to register the copyright of artworks generated by AI submitted by Steven Thaler, CEO of the artificial neural network developer 'Imagination Engines'.

Thaler filed an objection. In 2018, he applied for copyright registration of a painting created by AI called 'The Creativity Machines,' naming AI as the sole creator. This means that as a work made in the course of employment, Steven Thaler would be the copyright holder, and AI would be listed as the creator.

Under U.S. copyright law, works made for hire designate the employer, such as a corporation or organization, as the copyright holder.

A work created by Steven Taller using AI.
[Photo by Imagination Engine]

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However, the Copyright Office repeatedly rejected Thaler's registration application on the grounds that no human creative effort was involved.

In March, the Copyright Office announced that even for AI-generated works, human creativity must be evident, and that copyright would only apply to parts where human involvement is present.

According to this guideline, Thaler's work, which was automatically generated solely by AI without any human participation or intervention in the creative process, cannot be registered as a copyrighted work.

Federal Judge Barry Howell explained the ruling by stating, "A work must involve human creativity to be eligible for copyright."

A selfie photo taken by a black short-tailed monkey in Indonesia in 2011
Photo by Yonhap News

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Foreign media compared this to cameras and photographs. While a camera captures a specific scene as is, the camera itself is not granted copyright. Copyright arises not from the scene captured by the camera but from the human decisions regarding the subject's position and arrangement.

Judge Howell noted that the 2018 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that a monkey's selfie has no copyright also applied the same legal principle as a work created without human intervention.

Thaler announced plans to appeal the federal court's decision.

Thaler's side expressed "respectful regret over the court's interpretation of copyright law," emphasizing that "human involvement is not a specific legal requirement for copyright registration, and allowing AI copyrights aligns with the purpose of copyright stated in the U.S. Constitution to 'promote the progress of science and useful arts.'"

In South Korea, in June, the Seoul Administrative Court ruled against Thaler in a lawsuit challenging the Korean Intellectual Property Office's invalidation of a patent application. The court explained that under patent law, an inventor must be a 'natural person,' i.e., a biological human.

Meanwhile, separate from this, several copyright infringement lawsuits have been filed regarding data scraping that uses copyrighted works to train generative AI without the original author's permission.

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