The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a major case about whether artwork created entirely by artificial intelligence (AI) should be eligible for copyright protection, effectively leaving in place existing law that only works with human authorship can be copyrighted. The decision reinforces the legal standard that AI-generated content on its own doesn’t qualify for copyright because it lacks the necessary human creative element.
The case at the centre of this dispute was brought by Stephen Thaler, a computer scientist from Missouri whose AI system — known as DABUS — generated an image titled A Recent Entrance to Paradise. Thaler sought copyright registration on behalf of the algorithm in 2018, but the U.S. Copyright Office rejected the application on the grounds that the work did not involve human creativity, a requirement under U.S. law. Lower courts upheld that view in 2023 and 2025.
By declining to take up the appeal, the Supreme Court lets those rulings stand, sending a clear signal that AI alone cannot be recognised as an author under current copyright frameworks. Legal experts note this aligns with other recent decisions — including positions taken by the U.S. Patent Office and courts in the U.K. — that intellectual property protections continue to hinge on human authorship, even as AI tools assist creative processes.
The ruling has major implications for artists, tech companies and content platforms as AI-generated imagery, music and text become more pervasive. While humans who use AI tools as part of their creative process may still claim copyright for their own contributions, purely machine-generated works are likely to remain outside copyright protection unless laws change — which many observers say may ultimately require legislative action by Congress rather than judicial reinterpretation.
