Brown, Neri, Smith & Khan, LLP
into binding legal contracts and thus cannot meet this requirement.[1] Second, the work-for-hire doctrine only speaks to the identity of a work’s owner, not whether a work is protected by copyright. As explained above, the statute requires that a work contain human authorship. In sum, the Work is not a work made for hire because it is neither a “work of authorship” nor a work created “for hire.”
Much of Thaler’s second request amounts to a policy argument in favor of legal protection for works produced solely by artificial intelligence. He cites to no case law or other precedent that would undermine the Office’s construction of the Copyright Act. Because copyright law as codified in the 1976 Act requires human authorship, the Work cannot be registered.
IV. CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated herein, the Review Board of the United States Copyright Office affirms the refusal to register the copyright claim in the Work. Pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 202.5(g), this decision constitutes final agency action in this matter.
A personal signature appears here
U.S. Copyright Office Review Board
Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights
Suzanne Wilson, General Counsel and Associate Register of Copyrights
Kimberley Isbell, Deputy Director of Policy and International Affairs
- ↑ Autonomous systems are not “artificial persons” because they lack legal personhood. See Nadia Banteka, Artificially Intelligent Persons, 58 Hous. L. Rev. 537, 593 (2021) (noting the “trend” across state and federal courts that legal personhood requires “that an entity be an aggregate of individuals [who] have legal personhood,” as is true for corporations); cf. Software Solutions Partners Ltd. v. H.M. Customs & Excise, [2007] EWHC 971 [67] (Admin) (noting that “on current authority,” “automated systems” could not enter contracts because “only a person with a ‘mind’ can be an agent in law”).
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