Supreme Court denies appeal in AI-generated art case

(CN) — The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear arguments on whether an artificial intelligence machine could claim copyright authorship for an autonomously generated piece of art.

The high court’s decision leaves standing a D.C. Circuit ruling in favor of the U.S. Copyright Office, which held that human authorship is a fundamental requirement under the Copyright Act of 1976.

Stephen Thaler, a computer scientist, sought a copyright for the AI-generated art piece “A Recent Entrance to Paradise” in May 2019. Thaler listed his software, the Creative Machine, as the artwork’s sole author and himself as the work’s owner.

The Copyright Office denied Thaler’s application under the 1976 law.

Thaler argued on appeal that judicial opinions from “the Gilded Age” could not settle the complex questions that arise when artificial intelligence intertwines with human creativity.

U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia A. Millett, a Barack Obama appointee, wrote in a unanimous opinion last year that the Copyright Act was written to make “humanity a necessary condition for authorship.”

The Copyright Office first addressed whether machines could be authors in 1966 — 10 years before Congress passed the Copyright Act, and formally adopted a rule a few years later requiring that a work be authored by a human, Millett wrote.

Millet observed copyright is a form of property that can be inherited or transferred — actions that require a human owner. The duration of a copyright also corresponds to an author’s lifespan, or how long a human might live.

“Photography, sound recordings, video recordings, and computer programs are all technologies that were once novel, but which copyright law now protects,” Millet wrote. “Importantly, that evolution in copyright protection has been at Congress’ direction, not through courts giving new meaning to settled statutory terms.”

Millet observed that Thaler could still copyright the AI-generated artwork. He would simply have to file for protections in his own name instead of the machine’s name.

The panel’s decision laid down the first precedential marker over who (or what) qualifies as the author of work created solely by artificial intelligence, but other courts have decided cases involving nonhuman authors.

In 2018, the Ninth Circuit determined that Naruto, a crested macaque monkey represented by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), did not have standing to sue a book publisher for using photos the monkey took of itself using an unattended camera.

Millet was joined in the opinion by U.S. Circuit Judge Robert L. Wilkins, also an Obama appointee, and Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Judith W. Rogers, a Bill Clinton appointee.

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