United States District Court Judge Beryl Howell has ruled that humans are an “essential part of a valid copyright claim” when it comes to AI regulation, according to The Hollywood Reporter. This means that you cannot copyright AI-generated art.
The decision was ruled over a lawsuit against the US Copyright Office when it refused to copyright an image on behalf of Stephen Taler made with Creativity Machine. Thaler made multiple attempts to legally protect the rights to the image “as a work-for-hire to the owner of Creativity Machine.” His intention was to be listed as the owner of the artwork and the creator.
After the final denial by the Office last year, Thaler retaliated by suing, under grounds that the rejection was “arbitrary, capricious…and not in accordance with the law.” However, Judge Howell saw the situation differently, writing that copyright has never been granted for use that was “absent any guiding human hand”, continuing that “human authorship is a bedrock requirement of a copyright.”
However, Howell did acknowledge that we as people are “approaching new frontiers in copyright” in which AI will be used as a support tool to create new works. She said that this will inevitably create “challenging questions regarding how much human input is necessary” with regard to copyrighting AI-generated art, noting that data models are often trained on work that already exists.
According to a report by Bloomberg Law, Stephen Thaler is working with Brown Neri Smith & Khan LLP to appeal the case.
The issues arising from AI are affecting the entire entertainment industry, especially actors and writers given the simultaneous WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes that are ongoing as of earlier this year.