U.S. Court of Appeals for District of Columbia Upholds Human Authorship Requirement in AI-Generated Works

In an important (but perhaps not surprising) decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the U.S. Copyright Office’s denial of copyright registration for a work generated solely by AI. The court asked the question: “Can a non-human machine be an author under the Copyright Act of 1976?” Finding that registration would not satisfy the requirement that all registered works must be created by a human being in the first instance, the court found that the Copyright Office’s denial of copyright registration was proper.