The United States Supreme Court has ended the long saga over whether an AI can be registered as the author of an artwork after it declined to take up the case brought by computer scientist Dr. Stephen Thaler.
Thaler has long sought copyright registration for an image titled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise,” which he says was created independently by his AI system, which he calls the Creativity Machine. But the Supreme Court’s decision leaves in place lower court rulings that rejected Thaler’s claims.
Thaler first applied for copyright registration back in 2018 when he listed the machine as the creator. The artwork depicts train tracks leading into a portal, framed by what appears to be green and purple plant imagery.
In 2019, the U.S. Copyright Office denied the application. After reviewing the matter again in 2022, the agency concluded the image lacked “human authorship,” making it ineligible for copyright protection. The office has maintained that creative works must have human authors to qualify.
Thaler challenged the decision in federal court. In 2023, U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell upheld the Copyright Office’s decision, writing that human authorship is a “bedrock requirement of copyright.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed that ruling in 2025.
Thaler then asked the Supreme Court to review the case, arguing that the lower court’s decision “created a chilling effect on anyone else considering using AI creatively.” Reuters reports his lawyers argue the dispute is of “paramount importance” given the rapid development of generative AI. After the court declined to hear the appeal, they said, “even if it later overturns the Copyright Office’s test in another case, it will be too late. The Copyright Office will have irreversibly and negatively impacted AI development and use in the creative industry during critically important years.”
The Trump administration urged the justices not to take up the case.
“Although the Copyright Act does not define the term ‘author,’ multiple provisions of the act make clear that the term refers to a human rather than a machine,” the Department of Justice says.
The Copyright Office has also rejected applications from artists seeking protection for images generated using the AI system Midjourney, though those applicants argued they used AI as a tool rather than claiming the system acted independently.
