D.C. Circuit Holds that Works Created Solely by AI are Not Copyrightable

On March 18, 2025, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the D.C. District Court’s and U.S. Copyright Office’s decisions, holding that a copyrighted work cannot be authored exclusively by an AI system.

Computer scientist Dr. Stephen Thaler claims to have created a generative-AI system dubbed “Creativity Machine,” which Thaler says created a picture that Dr. Thaler titled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise” (the “Artwork”). Dr. Thaler submitted the Artwork to the Copyright Office for registration, listing the Creativity Machine as the sole author of the work and himself as the work’s owner, stating that the Artwork was “autonomously created by artificial intelligence.” The Copyright Office denied registration because “a human being did not create the work.”

Dr. Thaler then sought judicial review of the Office’s decision. The D.C. District Court agreed with the Office and declined to recognize copyright protection in works created solely by AI systems, holding that “[h]uman authorship is a bedrock requirement of copyright.” Thaler v. Perlmutter, 687 F. Supp. 3d 140, 146 (D.D.C. 2023). The district court also found that Dr. Thaler waived his argument that he should be regarded as the author because he created and used the Creativity Machine, as his case presented “only the question of whether a work generated autonomously by a computer system is eligible for copyright.” Id. at 149-50.

Affirming the district court’s decision, the D.C. Circuit rejected Dr. Thaler’s reading of the Act and held that “the current Copyright Act’s text, taken as a whole, is best read as making humanity a necessary condition for authorship under the Copyright Act.” Thaler v. Perlmutter, et al., Docket No. 23-05233 at 13 (D.C. Cir. Oct 18, 2023). It also rejected Dr. Thaler’s work‑made-for-hire argument, articulating that this provision “allows the copyright and authorship protections attaching to a work originally created by a human author to transfer instantaneously.” Id. at 17. The Court then clarified that, contrary to Dr. Thaler’s position, “the human authorship requirement does not prohibit copyrighting work that was made by or with the assistance of artificial intelligence,” it merely requires that the “author” of the work be a human being—not the AI system itself. Id. at 18-19.

This much is clear: under this holding, an AI system—by itself—cannot be the sole author of a copyrightable work because it does not satisfy the human authorship requirement.