AI Authorship Debate Rages on as DC Circuit Hints Courts May Counter Copyright Office Guidance

The DC Circuit affirmed that works solely generated by AI are not eligible for copyright protection because they lack human authorship. In Thaler v. Perlmutter, the court's analysis emphasized that the Copyright Act of 1976 interprets an 'author' necessarily as a human.

Finnegan partner Anna Chauvet told World Trademark Review that Thaler is interesting given the Supreme Court’s recent Loper Bright decision, which eliminated the Chevron doctrine requiring courts to defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of statutory language.

She added, “In Thaler, the DC Circuit painstakingly analyzed numerous provisions of the Copyright Act to make clear it was interpreting the statute independently of any Copyright Office rules.”

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