On March 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., issued a historic ruling (Case No. 23-5233) clarifying that works generated by artificial intelligence without direct human involvement are not protected by U.S. copyright law. This decision provides important judicial guidance for the current copyright disputes facing the rapidly growing generative AI industry.

The central dispute in this case is whether AI can be an author in the legal sense. The case stems from a copyright registration application filed in 2019 by computer scientist Stephen Thaler. He claimed that the AI system he developed, the Creativity Machine, had independently created a visual artwork entitled “A New and Recent Entrance to Paradise,” and listed the AI as the sole author, claiming rights only as the owner of the work. The U.S. Copyright Office repeatedly rejected the application for lack of human authorship, and Thaler then took the case to court.

The unanimous opinion of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, presided over by Judge Patricia Millett, noted that the text, structure, and history of the Copyright Act of 1976 demonstrate that the requirement that the author must be a human being is the cornerstone of the copyright system. The judgment lists seven legal bases in detail:

1. copyright, as a property right, requires that the author be a legal subject;

2. the term of copyright is calculated on the basis of human lifespan

3. the inheritance clause involves human relationships such as spouses and children

4. the transfer of copyright requires the authentication of human signatures

5. the protection of unpublished works involves the nationality and domicile of human beings; and

6. collaborative works require human creative intent;

7. legal provisions that consistently position machines as tools rather than creators.

In particular, the Court cited the 1978 conclusion of the U.S. National Commission on the Application of New Copyright Technologies (CONTU) that computers, like cameras or typewriters, are merely inert tools for human manipulation, emphasizing that this position had been adopted by Congress at the time of the 1976 Copyright Act legislation. The decision noted that the Copyright Office's continued application of the human authorship requirement since 1973, and the fact that Congress has not amended the law to override this interpretation in decades, constitutes acquiescence to the established judicial interpretation.

While the court recognized that AI-assisted creation of works may be subject to copyright protection (e.g., human-led use of AI tools), it explicitly drew a red line: when a work is claimed to have been generated entirely by an AI on its own, copyright protection is not available. The judgment suggests that it is up to Congress, not the courts, to revisit the legal framework should AI with human-level creativity emerge in the future.

Thaler's attorneys have said they will appeal to the Supreme Court, saying the ruling could discourage investment in AI innovation. For its part, the Copyright Office has stated that it supports the ruling, emphasizing the need to preserve the core values of human creativity. Notably, there are key differences between this case and other recent AI copyright lawsuits - the Copyright Office has case-by-case examined the extent of human contributions when artists have claimed AI-assisted creation, while this case is the first to claim that an AI creates entirely on its own.

With the explosive growth of generative AI, this case sets an important signpost for the content industry, but the battle over the boundaries of human-machine creativity will continue to haunt the legal and ethical systems for a long time.