A U.S. court has decided that an artificial intelligence-generated picture cannot be protected by copyright

US District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled that artworks created by artificial intelligence cannot be protected by copyright.

Here's What We Know

Howell considered the claim of inventor Stephen Thaler against the US Copyright Office after the office denied him a copyright on an image created by artificial intelligence using the Creativity Machine algorithm he created.

Thaler repeatedly tried to copyright the image "as a work-for-hire to the owner of the Creativity Machine" This would have listed the author as the creator of the work and Thaler as the owner of the work. However, he was repeatedly denied.

After the Bureau's final rejection in 2022, Thaler filed suit in court. He claimed that the denial was "arbitrary, capricious ... and not in accordance with the law"."

However, Judge Howell felt otherwise. In her ruling, she wrote that copyright was never granted to works that "lacked the guiding hand of man." The judge added that human authorship is a fundamental requirement of copyright.

However, she recognised that humanity will increasingly use AI as a creation tool to create new works. This will raise difficult questions about how necessary human contributions are to copyright, Howell added.

Thaler plans to appeal the court's decision.

Source: The Verge