• US District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell recently ruled that AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted.
• The ruling came after Howell heard respective cases in Thaler vs. Perlmutter.
• The judge deemed that AI-generated art could not be copyrighted as it lacked “any guiding human hand.”

One of the more divisive elements when it comes to artificial intelligence is the implications the technology has around ownership. While artists are fighting to ensure AI does not copy their work in order to create new content, those who specialise in AI-generated art are also looking to safeguard their creations.

The latter recently came under the spotlight as US District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled that AI-generated art could not be copyrighted. The ruling came after Howell presided over a lawsuit filed against the US Copyright Office (USCO) by Stephen Thaler.

Thaler attempted to have an image copyrighted on several occasions as “a work-for-hire to the owner of the Creativity Machine,” which is an AI content generation platform that he created. The copyright listed the author as the creator of the work and Thaler as the artwork’s owner, however, these attempts were rejected by the USCO repeatedly.

This prompted Thaler to file a lawsuit, which was unsuccessful following the decision that was handed down last week Friday.

As The Verge reports, Howell noted that copyright has never been granted to artwork that lacked “any guiding human hand.” The judge added that “human authorship is a bedrock requirement of copyright.”

While this is a blow to Thaler’s efforts, judge Howell did acknowledge that the times they are a changing.

Here, in her judgement, she noted that the advent of AI-generated art means society is, “approaching new frontiers in copyright,” with artists using AI tools and platforms like Midjourney to create wholly new work.

Moving forward, Howell explained that this would lead to, “challenging questions regarding how much human input is necessary” when it comes to copyrighting AI-generated art.

While we may have a definitive decision in this case, as AI becomes more pervasive, the elements of ownership and copyright will begin to muddy.

[Image – Photo by Google DeepMind on Unsplash]