TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Azya Thornton on Mar 20, 2025

A federal appeals court last week affirmed that a work of art generated by artificial intelligence without human input cannot be copyrighted under U.S. law. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed with the U.S. Copyright Office, which had found that an image created by Stephen Thaler's AI system "DABUS" was not entitled to copyright protection, and that only works with human authors can be copyrighted, according to Reuters. The Copyright Office also has rejected artists' bids for copyrights on images generated by the AI system Midjourney. Thaler's attorney said he and his client "strongly disagree" with the ruling and intend to appeal. U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, said U.S. copyright law "requires all work to be authored in the first instance by a human being."