In a recent ruling, a US District Judge affirmed that artwork generated entirely by artificial intelligence (AI) does not qualify for Copyright Protection. The decision was made in response to a legal challenge filed by Stephen Thaler, CEO of neural network firm Imagination Engines, who argued that AI should be considered an author and the ownership of the work should be vested in the machine’s owner.

The judge, however, disagreed and emphasized that copyright law requires human authorship. Previous cases were cited to support this position, including one that stated protection could only be extended to intellectual conceptions of human authors. Another case mentioned that a photograph taken by a monkey was not copyrightable because animals are not eligible for protection.

The ruling aims to encourage human individuals to engage in creative activities, reflecting the purpose of copyright law. Copyrights and patents were established to protect forms of property and incentivize individuals to create and invent.

This decision has implications for the ongoing legal discussions surrounding AI and copyright. It also raises questions about the legality of AI companies training their systems on copyrighted works. While most AI-generated works are not copyrightable, materials that are assisted by AI may qualify for protection if they are selected or arranged in a sufficiently creative way by a human.

Overall, the ruling reinforces the importance of human creativity in intellectual property and highlights the distinction between AI-generated art and human-created art in terms of copyright protection.

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