Supreme Court Won’t Hear AI Copyright Case, Leaving Human Authorship Rule Intact

The nation's highest court has refused to consider whether artificial intelligence can create copyrightable artwork. A Missouri computer scientist's legal challenge over his AI-generated image was rejected, maintaining the requirement that only humans can hold copyrights.

The nation’s highest court has decided not to review a groundbreaking case about whether artificial intelligence can hold copyrights for creative works, effectively maintaining current rules that require human creators.

On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Stephen Thaler, a computer scientist from St. Charles, Missouri, who had been fighting for copyright protection of artwork created entirely by his artificial intelligence system.

Thaler’s legal battle began in 2018 when he sought federal copyright registration for “A Recent Entrance to Paradise,” a digital artwork depicting train tracks leading into a portal with green and purple plant-like imagery surrounding it. He claimed his AI technology called “DABUS” produced the piece without human involvement.

The U.S. Copyright Office turned down his application in 2022, determining that creative works require human authors to qualify for copyright protection. Federal courts in Washington later supported this decision, with one judge stating in 2023 that human authorship represents a “bedrock requirement of copyright.” The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed this ruling in 2025.

President Donald Trump’s administration had recommended against the Supreme Court taking up Thaler’s case, arguing that “multiple provisions of the act make clear that the term refers to a human rather than a machine,” despite the Copyright Act not explicitly defining “author.”

Thaler’s legal team had argued their case held “paramount importance” given artificial intelligence’s rapid expansion in creative fields. They warned that the court’s refusal to hear the appeal could harm AI development in creative industries during crucial growth years.

“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,” his attorneys stated.

The Copyright Office has similarly denied copyright applications from other artists seeking protection for images created using the AI system Midjourney. However, those cases differed from Thaler’s because the artists claimed they used AI as a tool to assist their creative process, rather than having the AI work independently.

This marks the second time the Supreme Court has declined to hear Thaler’s arguments about AI-created intellectual property. The court previously rejected his separate case involving AI-generated inventions for a beverage holder and light beacon, which the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had also denied on similar human authorship grounds.