Supreme Court Lets AI Copyright Rejection Stand — Human Authorship Rule Holds

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear Thaler v. Perlmutter, leaving intact a lower court ruling that works created entirely by AI systems are not eligible for copyright protection under U.S. law.

Missouri computer scientist Stephen Thaler sought to register an image generated autonomously by his AI system. The U.S. Copyright Office rejected the application, and the D.C. Circuit affirmed that the Copyright Act protects only works with human authorship. By denying certiorari, the Supreme Court allows that interpretation to stand.

For AI music, the implications are direct. Fully autonomous songs generated without meaningful human creative input would not qualify for copyright protection in the U.S. However, works where a human meaningfully shapes, edits, arranges, or directs the output may still meet the threshold — a distinction that is becoming increasingly central in AI-assisted production workflows.

For now, U.S. copyright law remains anchored to human agency, even as generative systems grow more sophisticated.