The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a dispute over whether artificial intelligence-generated art can be copyrighted, upholding a lower court ruling. The case involved computer scientist Stephen Thaler, who sought a copyright for visual art created by his AI system, "DABUS." The U.S. Copyright Office and subsequent court decisions affirmed that copyright protection requires human authorship.
The Copyright Office has consistently maintained that creative works must have human authors. This decision impacts the ongoing debate about intellectual property in the age of generative AI. Thaler's lawyers argued the case was critical for AI development, but the court's refusal means the current standard of human authorship will prevail for now.
The Supreme Court had previously rejected a similar appeal from Thaler regarding AI-generated inventions.