By Atreya Mathur
In August 2023, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, under the jurisdiction of Judge Beryl A. Howell, rendered a decision in Thaler v. Perlmutter, addressing the refusal by the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) to register an AI-generated visual work titled "A Recent Entrance to Paradise." Stephen Thaler, the plaintiff, asserted that the work was autonomously created by an AI algorithm known as the "Creativity Machine."[1]
Facts and Background of the Case
The dispute originated in August 2019 when the USCO rejected Thaler's copyright application,[2] citing the absence of human authorship—a decision upheld through internal appeals. Thaler subsequently filed a lawsuit under the Administrative Procedure Act,[3] challenging the USCO's actions as arbitrary and not in accordance with the law.
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